Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

DEATH OF A MEMBER

Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the death of the right honourable Aneurin Bevan, Member for Ebbw Vale, and I desire on behalf of the House to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the honourable Member.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SOMERSET COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

Lords Amendments considered and agreed to.

BUDE-STRATTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [Lords]

Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.

Bill read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALTA

Bailey (Malta) Limited

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent Messrs. Baileys intend to develop Malta Dockyard during the next two years; what number of merchant ships have been refitted since the Admiralty handed over to Messrs. Bailey; and what number are expected to be taken in hand within the next two years.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod): Before Bailey (Malta) Ltd. took over the dockyard on

30th March, 1959, it had been formally agreed that the conversion and re-equipment of the yard and the setting up of the company would be carried out on the basis of a£6¾ million plan. Her Majesty's Government's loan contribution to the plan was to be£6 million. The work of conversion was expected to begin in August, 1959, and to be completed by March, 1964.
Messrs. Baileys in January this year submitted a revised development plan to Her Majesty's Government. This plan would involve a considerable increase in the cost of the conversion and has required the most careful examination. It was by no means certain that the additional expense would be justified in terms of additional work and employment. The recent talks with the company have also been prolonged by the necessity to deal with certain other issues relating to the operation of the financial agreement. I hope that all these discussions will soon be finalised and that the development of the yard will proceed, so that the next two years should see very considerable progress towards creating a commercial ship repairing yard in Malta. Her Majesty's Government stand by their undertaking to provide up to£6 million for the conversion.
In answer to the second part of the Question, I am informed that 132 commercial ships have entered the docks for repairs since Baileys took over, but I am unable to make the forecast called for in the third part of the Question.

Mr. Wall: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the inevitable delay in the start of the conversion of the Malta dockyard will lead to any redundancy on the part of dock workers?

Mr. Macleod: I hope not, but these talks have been going on for a very long time and I think it is urgent that they should now move to a conclusion.

Mr. Callaghan: While we all desire to see the utmost employment in Malta, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is investigating the allegations, made very strongly in Cardiff and Barry, that because of some of the difficulties involved in this matter Baileys are diverting ships which would normally


be repaired in those yards to Malta? This is creating, and will continue to create, a lot of feeling. Will the Minister assure us that this will not happen?

Mr. Macleod: That is a new point to me. I have not heard of that anxiety in Wales, but I will certainly look into it.

Oral Answers to Questions — MAURITIUS

Ministerial Delegation (Talks)

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement about his talks with the Mauritius Ministerial delegation.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on his discussions with the Ministerial delegation from Mauritius regarding further post-cyclone assistance for the island.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The Ministerial delegation from Mauritius has had a series of valuable discussions with me and with officials of my Department. I am now in touch with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer about the conclusions reached in these discussions, and I hope to be able to make a statement next week.

Mr. Wall: Can my right hon. Friend say whether these discussions will be confined to economic matters or will extend to other matters as well?

Mr. Macleod: They are almost entirely confined to the question of post-cyclone rehabilitation and the contribution of the Government to it.

Mr. Thomson: Will the Minister remind his right hon. Friend that 100,000 people were made homeless in Mauritius? I understand that on the advice of the Minister's own housing expert 25,000 houses are needed. Will the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend to be generous, despite the financial stringency imposed by the Treasury?

Mr. Macleod: I am sure that these considerations which have been very much in my mind are also in the mind of my right hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL TERRITORIES

Saltwater Conversion

Mr. B. Harrison: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what research is being carried out in Colonial Territories on saltwater conversion.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am aware of no organised research work in the Colonial Territories directed to the demineralisation of saltwater. The Tropical Products Institute of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research is conducting investigations on behalf of Colonial Territories towards the development of new designs of solar stills. The Institute is also in touch with developments elsewhere in saltwater conversion in order to be able to advise Colonial Governments.

Mr. Harrison: In view of the tremendous possibilities of saltwater conversion in some of the more arid parts of the Colonial Empire, will my right hon. Friend keep in touch with the commercial work which is going on in the United States on this subject at the present time?

Mr. Macleod: I know that there is work going on in the United States, and I think that the Tropical Products Institute—indeed, I am sure it is—is in touch with it.

Colonial Medical Service

Dr. Stross: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware of the need for the expansion of the Colonial Medical Service, and the need for more men and women trained in medicine to serve in these territories; and whether he will take steps to integrate the Colonial Medical Service with the National Health Service.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am aware of the need for a steady increase in the numbers of doctors available for service in the dependent territories, and my Department has had a fair measure of success in recruiting doctors to meet requests made by Governments. The large territories in East Africa are increasingly using local doctors qualified at the Medical School of Makerere. Arrangements are already in force for doctors in the National Health Service


to serve overseas while preserving their pension rights here, and in cases where the home employers are able to keep a post open while a doctor is serving abroad, secondment is arranged.

Dr. Stross: Does not the Colonial Secretary agree, with reference to the last part of his answer, that he has there touched upon the difficulty, and does he not realise that I have asked for integration because it would make it easier for personnel to go out and do a term of service without losing their chances of promotion at home? In view of the experience that he had as Minister of Health, will not he look at the matter again and see what more can be done?

Mr. Macleod: We are looking into the matter. I do not believe that integration in that sense is possible or practicable, because there are so many employers of doctors here and so many employers of doctors abroad. However, we are in consultation with the British Medical Association and will continue those consultations to ascertain what arrangements we can make on the lines of the comment in my main answer to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. B. Harrison: Will my right hon. Friend make certain that there is an adequate number of non-medical people in the administrative services so that he does not have a farcical situation, such as happened at the hospital in Aden, where the doctors were doing the whole of the administrative work and wasting their special skill?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, that is certainly important. With regard to doctors, there are 50-odd vacancies, and a number of these, which are for specialist posts, are rather difficult to fill.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: Will the right hon. Gentleman look at recent schemes for encouraging teachers to go to the Commonwealth, while preserving their promotion rights and other rights here, and consider whether it would not be possible to have a similar scheme to encourage doctors to do a term of service in countries which need them?

Mr. Macleod: We are looking into all these matters. They figured prominently, as the hon. Member will have seen, in the Conservative Party manifesto at the last General Election.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA

Education

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what proportions of children of school age of the Eureopean, Asian, Arab, and African communities in Kenya are attending schools, respectively; what proportions are attending secondary schools; what is the number of multi-racial schools: and what is the annual cost, per child, of education for the different races.

Mr. Iain Macleod: As the answer is long and detailed, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it with the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Brockway: Will the right hon. Gentleman say, in summary, whether these figures indicate that there is segregation in education according to race in Kenya and that those who receive the least aid are the children of the African population, who are the majority?

Mr. Macleod: Part of my answer shows that there are 14 schools which admit children without distinction as to race. Naturally, one would like to see that number considerably increased. I have given the comparable figures as far as I can, but it is immensely difficult to compare like with like because of the greater dependency of the non-African communities on boarding schools at the primary stage of education, which inevitably increases the cost.

Following is the answer:
Accurate and up-to-date population statistics will not be available until after the census next year, and in their absence I will not venture on a precise reply to the first two parts of the hon. Member's question.
Few children of any community who reach school age and seek admission to primary school now fail to find a place.
Fourteen schools admit children without distinction of race.
The estimated cost per child for primary, intermediate and secondary education taken together is: European£41; Asian£22; Arab£25; African£4. But, because mainly of the greater dependence of non-African communities on boarding schools at the primary stage, the figures do not reflect comparison of like with like. This is shown by the comparative figures for secondary education where the net charge on public funds this year will be: European£87; Asian£41; Arab£69; and African£99.

Civil Servants

Lord Balniel: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what assurances he gave the delegation of the Kenya Civil Service, at their meeting with him on 27th June on the future of Kenya civil servants when the country becomes independent.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I told the delegation that the undertakings given in Colonial No. 306 would, at the appropriate time, apply without qualification to the Kenya Civil Service, but that I recognised that these undertakings, which were given in 1954, might not fully meet the present situation and I was therefore considering whether any further action by Her Majesty's Government was practicable. I also told the delegation that in other territories a clear distinction had been drawn between the responsibilities of Her Majesty's Government for the Overseas Civil Service and for locally recruited members of the Civil Service, but that I recognised that in Kenya the local Civil Service presented exceptional problems of which full account would be taken.

Lord Balniel: That is good news, but in view of the very difficult situation in Kenya at the moment, would not my right hon. Friend agree that the maintenance of the morale in the Kenya Civil Service is just about the most important thing that is needed at the moment? Will he consider very carefully indeed whether some form of guarantee of a contract of service cannot be given before the goal of independence is reached?

Mr. Macleod: I certainly agree with my noble Friend's first point. On the second point, the undertakings, given in Colonial No. 306 have been observed to the full in all the half-dozen territories which have become independent or have moved towards independence since that date, and they will apply in full to Kenya. However, as I have indicated, there are special circumstances in Kenya, particularly in regard to the locally recruited members, but I have given an undertaking that at the appropriate time those undertakings will be taken into account.

Economic Aid

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what economic aid has been given to Kenya by the United Kingdom in the last three years; and what proposals he is now considering to stimulate the expansion of Kenya's economy.

Mr. Iain Macleod: From 1st April, 1957, to 30th June, 1960, assistance of£12,889,085 was issued to Kenya in emergency aid, colonial development and welfare grants and Exchequer loans. This excludes issues for general East African development, such as those administered by the East Africa High Commission, but includes some emergency expenditure.
Kenya received an allocation of £5 million under last year's Colonial Development and Welfare Act for the period to 31st March, 1964, and will also receive a share of the £100 million exchequer loans made available under that Act. This will include the funds which we have promised to make available for land development and resettlement. In addition, all the East African territories were relieved on 1st July of the recurrent costs of the East African Land Forces to enable them to devote additional resources to economic and social development. These forces last year cost Kenya an estimated £1,128,000.

Mr. Swingler: In view of the Minister's recent replies in the House showing the Kenya Government's inability at the moment to introduce a minimum living wage, and in view of the known unemployment existing in Nairobi and elsewhere and of the dangers of further outbreaks of lawlessness, which are obviously connected with the poverty and backwardness in Kenya, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that further steps should be taken urgently now in order to provide full employment there and that he should give a definite date for introducing a minimum living wage.

Mr. Macleod: I do not think that full employment in that sense can be given by additional help in the form of money. The Kenya development plan is running at the rate of nearly£9 million a year, and we are planning to discuss with the Kenya Ministers over the next week


or so additional help in relation to land development and resettlement, which I think is perhaps the most urgent of all developments.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA

Detainees

Mr. Callaghan: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many detainees are at present kept in detention camps in Northern Rhodesia; and what is his policy about releasing them.

Mr. Iain Macleod: None, Sir; therefore the second part of the question does not arise.

Oral Answers to Questions — AFRICAN TERRITORIES

Detained and Restricted Persons

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the number of persons now detained or rusticated or restricted in movement in Kenya, Uganda, Nyasaland, and Northern Rhodesia, respectively; and when it is proposed to release them from these confinements and restrictions.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the numbers controlled on 1st July by detention or restriction in each territory. The controls will be relaxed when the Governors are satisfied that they are no longer strictly required by the exigencies of the situation.

Mr. Brockway: While I recognise the new colonial climate since the right hon. Gentleman has been responsible for colonial affairs, is it not desirable that we should put an end to this very widespread detention without trial of people in these territories, and if the right hon. Gentleman is going to crown the work which he has been doing, will he not make this an urgent aim?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, Sir; I am very anxious indeed about this. The day may come when that may be possible. However, I am bound to tell the hon. Gentleman that the reports that are coming in, for example on the security situation in the last day or two in Kenya, are most disturbing indeed, and in the face of that it would certainly be folly to speed up

what has been a fast release of detainees in recent months.

Following is the information:


—
Detained (i)
Restricted (ii)


Kenya
…
494
784


Uganda
…
nil
104


Nyasaland
…
20
385


Northern Rhodesia
…
nil
9


NOTES:—


(i) Vagrants and prisoners held in custody on remand or conviction by the courts are excluded.


(ii) Those restricted include persons subject to controls within their home areas and persons excluded from those areas (sometimes referred to as rustication), whether subject to further controls or not.

Oral Answers to Questions — BAHRAIN

Prisoners, St. Helena

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the cost of keeping the three prisoners from Bahrain on the island of St. Helena; and who bears the cost.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The amount paid by the Bahrain Government, which is responsible for meeting the cost, was£1,760 in 1958, the last full year for which I have figures.

Mr. Wyatt: Does it not weigh heavily on the conscience of the Minister, who is a humane and liberal man, that he should be acting as the gaoler for a tyrant in Bahrain, who rigged the trial of these men? Does he not realise that he has a responsibility, under the Colonial Prisoners (Removal) Act, 1869, to behave as if these men had been tried in St. Helena and not in Bahrain, and, if they had been, he would at once have released them? Will he not take some action, because this is one of the most disgraceful episodes that has taken place under his office for many years?

Mr. Macleod: No. Indeed, these people were moved in January, 1957, under the Colonial Prisoners (Removal) Act, as the hon. Gentleman has said, and an appeal in the case of one of them, as he knows, has recently been before the Privy Council. I do not think that my responsibility in relation to the trial goes beyond that.

Mr. Warbey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his predecessor, through a notice published in an extraordinary


issue of the St. Helena Gazette, declared these men to be convicted before they were even tried, that the trial which took place has been declared by every competent observer to have been a sheer farce, that the men were shanghaied to St. Helena by a disgraceful piece of jiggery-pokery by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, the Foreign Secretary and the Ruler of Bahrain, all conspiring together? Is it not time that these men were released and compensation paid for the wrong done to them?

Mr. Macleod: These are matters that surely can be investigated, and were investigated very recently indeed, by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. They are not matters, in that sense, for the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Mr. S. Silverman: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the opinions expressed by both my hon. Friends in supplementary questions are shared very widely beyond the limits of any particular party, and that they raise questions of liberty and constitutional law of wide-ranging importance? Is he really satisfied, even though the Privy Council was unable to interfere with what was done in this case, and will he give the House an assurance that he will never again lend himself to such a manœuvre?

Mr. Macleod: I am afraid that I am not at all clear what the hon. Gentleman means by "such a manœuvre". I gather that he is talking about something that happened before these people came directly into my custody by going to St. Helena——

Mr. Silverman: No.

Mr. Macleod: As to the trial itself, that clearly is not a question for me, but there is another Question down on the Order Paper to my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary.

Mr. Silverman: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the comments are not limited to matters which took place before the right hon. Gentleman had any responsibility, but to the alteration of our own law ex post factum in order to give us jurisdiction to imprison other people's subjects without trial, which, until then, we had not got?

Mr. Macleod: If I misunderstood the hon. Member's point, and if I have any responsibility in that matter, of course, I

will look at it again in the light of the supplementary questions that have been asked.

Mr. Wyatt: Does the Minister realise that these men would never have been convicted in a British court, and that he himself has a responsibility in this matter? Will he not promise the House, because he has a very good reputation for liberal behaviour, that he will look into the whole circumstances of this case and have these men released, because anybody who has been looking into this case, and I myself have interviewed these men—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—agrees that their only crime was that they were asking to have seats on a town council, on health and education committees and so forth, and that this so much irritated the Ruler as to prompt him to take the action he did, with the connivance of the British Government?

Mr. Macleod: I do not think that adds very much to the exchanges we have had. I am not going to try to usurp the functions of my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary or of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. So far as my own responsibility is concerned, I will look at the matter again in the light of the supplementary questions, and I have already given that undertaking to the House.

Captain Pilkington: On a point of order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that there were some half-a-dozen supplementary questions from the other side of the House but that one of my hon. Friends who rose to his feet each time never caught your eye?

Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. Member will have to trust my discretion in these matters. I do not govern it by any irrefragable principle at any time.

Oral Answers to Questions — CYPRUS

Disturbances (Casualties)

Mr. Reynolds: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many British and Cypriot lives have been lost in Cyprus since 28th July, 1954, due to armed action and civil disturbances.

Mr. Iain Macleod: 142 British and 492 Cypriot.

Mr. Reynolds: While welcoming the settlement in Cyprus and deploring the loss of life, may I ask the Colonial Secretary if he is aware that on the date mentioned in the Question—28th July, 1954—his predecessor said that Cyprus could never expect to be fully independent and that there was no question of any change of sovereignty? Therefore, is he aware that these British and Cypriot lives have been squandered by the Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite, and that those behind him on that occasion applauded his defence of a position which has now been completely thrown away? Will he make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again, because British and Cypriot lives are valuable?

Mr. Macleod: I find it hard to believe that, if the hon. Member had put his mind to it, he could have found a less helpful contribution.

Nuclear Weapons

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent he discussed with Archbishop Makarios the question of the stockpiling of nuclear weapons in Cyprus: and what assurances he gave to the Archbishop that the civil population would be adequately defended in the event of a nuclear attack.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The question of stockpiling nuclear weapons in Cyprus or of civil defence against nuclear attack has not been the subject of negotiations during the recent discussions.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister recall that when we went from Suez to Cyprus the then leader of the "Suez Group" said that if one hydrogen bomb was dropped on Cyprus, that would be the end of the base and there would be just a hole in the sea? Why should such important considerations be entirely forgotten when we know that Cyprus is the base for a possible attack on the Soviet oilfields of the Caucasus, with possible retaliation?

Mr. Macleod: Without following all the ramifications of that, the hon. Member put a Question to me as to what extent this question was a matter of negotiation in the recent discussions, and the answer to that, simply, is that it was not.

Base Areas

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is proposed in the White Paper on Cyprus to furnish details, including maps, of the British military base.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Details of the arrangements concerning the retained sites in the Republic and maps showing the boundaries of the Sovereign Base Areas will be included in the White Paper, which will be available later today.

Mr. Shinwell: Is not this a surprising innovation? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when hon. Members ask for information about bases and military details, they are refused on grounds of security? Is this to be made public? Is Mr. Khrushchev to be informed and does this represent a new climate of opinion in the Government?

Mr. Macleod: No, Sir. The right hon. Gentleman, as an ex-Minister of Defence, knows very well that details of these matters are not revealed. The boundaries of the areas, of course, will be shown, and the retained sites, and there are a considerable number in the republic, will also be shown, but their purpose will not be indicated.

Civil Defence

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how much has been spent on civil defence in Cyprus since the decision to establish a military base there.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Civil Defence expenditure in Cyprus from 1956 has been £223,000.

Mr. Hughes: Could the Minister say whether there are any proposals for the evacuation of the civil population from Cyprus in the event of a hydrogen bomb attack, and where they are to be evacuated?

Mr. Macleod: I am sure that the answer is "No", but, no doubt, that question ought to be put down to my right hon. and learned Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES. AND FOOD

Surplus Foodstuffs (Disposal)

Sir J. Maitland: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what specific action he or those who represent him on international bodies such as the


Food and Agriculture Organisation or the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation have taken to enable surplus food to be exported to countries part of whose populations are known to be suffering from undernourishment.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Hare): My representatives have always supported the efforts of the Food and Agriculture Organisation to find ways and means of furthering distribution of surplus foodstuffs compatible with their internationally agreed principles for surplus disposal and other relevant international arrangements and obligations.

Sir J. Maitland: My right hon. Friend has not answered the Question as to what lead we had taken. I asked him, does he not realise that here is an opportunity to help others at the same time as we are helping ourselves, because there is considerable anxiety about the amount of the agricultural surpluses that there are in Europe today? Will he not see that the promises of this Government and of previous Governments are honoured in this matter?

Mr. Hare: As I have said, we are taking our full part in the Food and Agriculture Organisation, which is specifically charged with responsibility for this, and we shall continue to do so. We, in fact, import something like 50 per cent. of what we eat.

Sir J. Duncan: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that we are subscribing very largely to various international funds, the principal part of which goes towards the purchase, mainly from America, of articles for the underdeveloped countries? Why should we not participate in that sort of thing so that the surpluses in Europe, and even in this country, can be exported in that way?

Mr. Hare: We are playing our full share in the F.A.O. in these matters, but I stress that the F.A.O. considers that the solution of the long-term problem of under-nourishment lies in improving the food productivity of these less developed countries and in the extension of their purchasing power. That is a view which Her Majesty's Government share

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I hope that my right hon. Friend will not limit his interest in this matter to what we can do through F.A.O., since we have other important responsibilities, especially towards Arab refugees. Cannot the United Kingdom, perhaps together with other members of the Commonwealth, itself do something direct in real terms?

Mr. Hare: The point my hon. Friend has raised is always in the mind of Her Majesty's Government.

Protein

Sir J. Maitland: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is aware that British scientists at Rothamsted have been successful in producing protein suitable for human consumption direct from vegetable matter, and that one manufacturer is at present producing it on a commercial scale; and what steps he is taking through the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation to see that this discovery is used to the full to supplement diets in under-nourished countries.

Mr. Hare: I know of the work done at Rothamsted on the extraction of protein from green leaves, though I have not been informed that protein is being produced in this way on a commercial scale at present. The results of the Rothamsted investigations have been brought to the attention of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the body primarily concerned with direct techniques for dealing with under-nourishment, and the Director-General, Mr. Sen, has himself visited the Leaf Protein Production Unit at Rothamsted.

Sir J. Maitland: Is not this another case in which we ought to try to take the lead, instead of always forwarding the matter to an organisation, and in which we could do something along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke)? Does not my hon. Friend realise that the main cause of undernourishment is protein shortage? If he wants a long-term policy to help these people to produce their own food, should he not remember that it is the shortage of protein which is preventing them from doing so?

Mr. Hare: Yes, but I think that my hon. and gallant Friend will have heard what I said. A great deal of research has been done to see whether protein can be extracted from vegetable material. So far as I know, at the moment there is no way of doing that on a commercial scale.

Johne's Disease

Mr. P. Browne: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made towards finding a vaccine to immunise cattle against Johne's disease which does not give a false tuberculin test reaction.

Mr. Hare: Research is going on into this very difficult problem. I cannot say when it is likely to yield positive results.

Mr. Browne: As the majority of this country is now designated an attested area, and as there are grave losses from Johne's disease every year, will my right hon. Friend consider allowing those farmers who wish to do so to have their cattle vaccinated in the areas which are now designated attested areas, possibly extending the attestation tests from a one-year to a two-year period?

Mr. Hare: My hon. Friend is thinking on the right lines and I will consider what he has said, but the first thing we have to do is to get the whole of the country attested, which we will do very soon, and then make further progress with our field trials on vaccination against Johne's disease.

Beef

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state the quantity of beef imported into this country, in recent months, to the latest convenient date, from Commonwealth sources and the Argentine.

Mr. Hare: In the first five months of 1960 total imports of beef from the Commonwealth amounted to 29,000 tons, while from the Argentine during the same period, 84,000 tons were imported.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Is my right hon. Friend aware that farmers will watch with anxiety the rising amount of imports coming into this country in the last few months? Will he consult his right hon. Friend the President of the Board

of Trade in view of the Government's declared policy to see that home production is safeguarded by not allowing excessive imports of Argentinian or Commonwealth beef?

Mr. Hare: No. If my hon. Friend studies the figures of imports for this year and last year, he will see that imports have not risen. I am very glad to say that there will be an increase in home production during the next twelve months, which will help to meet the marked shortage of beef.

Mr. Willey: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that there has been a substantial fall in beef supplies and that we want all the beef we can get from where we can get it?

Mr. Hare: That is the point I was trying to make to my hon. Friend. It is fair to say that it is not due to any action on our part that we are receiving less imports from the Commonwealth countries, which are finding the United States market more attractive.

Synthetic Oestrogens

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has noted that stilboestrol-treated chickens are banned in some countries; and whether he proposes to impose a similar ban in this country.

Mr. Hare: I am aware that there is some control of the use of synthetic oestrogens in the production of poultry and livestock in certain countries. The use of these substances is being studied by the Agricultural Research Council and I am awaiting their advice.

Dr. Stross: Does that Answer mean that if the Minister is advised that the practice is not desirable and that there may be some effect upon the health of those who eat the flesh of these chickens, he will take action and ban it here, too?

Mr. Hare: I would not like to prejudge the expert evidence which is shortly to be made available to me, but I am advised that the risk is very slight and that no cases of harmful effects to human consumers in this country have come to my notice, or to the notice of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health.

Organic Fertilisers

Mr. Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consideration he has given to the proposals sent to him by the West Kent Main Sewerage Board and other sewerage authorities that dried organic fertilisers from sewage purification plants should be eligible for subsidy under schemes made in accordance with the Agriculture (Fertilisers) Act, 1952.

Mr. Hare: My Ministry has discussed the technical problems involved in these proposals with a number of sewerage authorities, including the West Kent Main Sewerage Board. At present no wholly organic fertilisers are subsidised, and there would be great difficulties in subsidising them because of the wide variation in plant nutrient content.

Mr. Irving: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a number of sewerage authorities are having difficulty in disposing of these fertilisers because of the competition from subsidised fertilisers? In view of the benefit to farmers and ratepayers by way of rate relief, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there is no prejudice in his Department against this type of dried organic manure produced by purification plant and that he will pursue the matter more energetically?

Mr. Hare: I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no prejudice. The difficulty is that when paying out subsidies one wants to know for what one is paying, and because of the varying content of this form of fertiliser it is much better to stick to our present arrangements.

Farm Rents

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the increases in farm rents resulting from the Agriculture Act, 1958.

Mr. Hare: The latest available information shows that the average level of farm rents in England and Wales in the year ended Michaelmas, 1959, was some 8 per cent. higher than in the previous year.

Mr. Willey: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that that justifies all the warnings which we gave when we

discussed the Act in Committee? Does he not also realise that the farmer is put in an impossible position in that he sees his income falling and yet is told to reduce farming costs while rents are going up steeply against him as a result of Government policy?

Mr. Hare: The hon. Gentleman is using rather extreme language. With all his knowledge of agriculture, he knows perfectly well that rents generally have in no way kept up with the extra cost of repairs and so on. With this modest increase in rents, landlords will be able to give better service to tenants by keeping farms and so on in better condition.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Stilboestrol

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food as representing the Minister for Science, what research is being conducted into the carcinogenous effects of using stilboestrol in the production of broiler chickens.

Mr. Hare: Under certain laboratory conditions, large doses of oestrogens have been found to have carcinogenic properties in laboratory animals. I am advised that stilboestrol is very little used in this country for the production of broiler chickens. Even when it is used, the amounts that remain in the edible parts are very small by comparison with the amounts involved in these laboratory experiments. The Agricultural Research Council is, however, reviewing the possible hazards associated with the use of these substances in agriculture.

Mr. Lipton: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that this chemical is known to produce cancer in animals and that its long-term effects on humans should be the subject of a much wider and more careful research than is apparently going on at the moment? Does not the whole subject of the chemical treatment of food call for much wider research?

Mr. Hare: The hon. Gentleman should not discount the very detailed examination which has been given to the subject by the Agricultural Research Council. I do not wish in any way to be complacent, but we have had no reports of harmful effects to people resulting from the use of these things.

Dr. Stross: Has the right hon. Gentleman consulted his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about this substance? Is he aware that the Home Secretary makes use of this substance and that it is allowed to be given in appreciable doses to people who are imprisoned and whose sexual desire has proved a menace to society generally? Might he not get some information which would be useful to him if he spoke to his right hon. Friend?

Mr. Hare: That might be considered slightly outside this Question, but I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments. As he will realise, the best thing to do is to wait for the report of the expert committee which is looking into the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Protection of Birds Act, 1954

Mr. Wade: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what steps he is taking to ensure that the provisions of the Protection of Birds Act, 1954, are made known to the public and, in particular, to young people;
(2) on how many occasions since 1957 posters have been circulated to the police and local authorities for display in schools and public places, drawing attention to the provisions of the Protection of Birds Act, 1954.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Dennis Vosper): Copies of a poster summarising the provisions of the Act were distributed in 1957 to local authorities and the police, who were told that further copies could be obtained on request. My right hon. Friend does not think that any further steps on his part are called for at present.

Mr. Wade: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there have been some very regrettable cases of killing and maiming of animals and birds, including rare birds, by young people with firearms? Whilst it would not provide an entirely satisfactory solution, it might help if the provisions of this Act were better known. As it was found practicable to display posters in schools and public places in 1957, would it not be possible to repeat that from time to time?

Mr. Vosper: I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman. The posters are available and some local authorities have asked for further supplies. It would be difficult for my right hon. Friend to send supplies without request. I hope that this Question will provoke further demand.

Mr. Eden: Can my right hon. Friend say whether, as a result of this Act, some species of birds have not already so increased in number as either to cause an imbalance in other species or have harmful effects on other plant and animal life?

Mr. Vosper: I believe that there have been some representations to that effect, but I do not think that I should like to answer that question with this one.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Would my right hon. Friend consider introducing licensing of airguns for youths under the age of 16, who spend a lot of time using them to kill and maim wild life?

Mr. Vosper: I do not think that arises from the Question on the Order Paper.

Proprietary Drugs

Mr, F. Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from the chairman of the Advertising Inquiry Committee regarding the sale of certain proprietary drug products, whose formulae have been changed since he introduced his recent regulations, although the original brand names have been retained and in some cases similar claims continue to be made by the makers; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Vosper: The chairman of this Committee asked for comments on the situation described in the Question. My right hon. Friend replied that he has no power to control the naming or advertisement of medicinal preparations but that he understands that the Working Party on the law relating to medicinal substances will review statutory restrictions on their advertisement.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Would it not be a good thing if, arising from the work of this Working Party, power were taken? Swindles are being perpetrated on the public on a considerable scale. The firm which makes the drug Persomnia, which


may now not be sold without a prescription, has produced a new formula and is marketing it under the same name. There are other instances. Is it not time to take steps to protect the public from frauds of this kind being perpetrated?

Mr. Vosper: I have seen the advertisement to which the hon. Gentleman refers. There may well be something in what he says. It is not a matter for the Poisons Board, but it may well be within the jurisdiction of the Working Party to which he has referred.

Oral Answers to Questions — Furness Road, N.W.10 (Lorries)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action has been taken by the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis to abate the nuisance caused to the residents of Furness Road, N.W.10, of long parking periods by as many as 10 lorries, the loading from one lorry direct to another, and other nuisances perpetrated by a waste recovery factory in that area.

Mr. Vosper: I am informed by the Commissioner of Police that the police have received many complaints about obstruction and other nuisances near these premises. They have not observed loading from one lorry to another or as many as 10 lorries parked for long periods, but proceedings have been taken in respect of a number of traffic offences.

Mr. Pavitt: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have seen these lorries and have seen one loaded from another? Can nothing be done to prevent the public highway being used as an extension of factory premises? Is he aware that this factory is adjacent to a school and that the inconsiderate use of these lorries gives considerable anxiety to parents in my constituency?

Mr. Vosper: I have examined the correspondence in this case. Prosecutions have been taken out against more than half the employees of this firm, which itself has been prosecuted on two occasions. I understand that the local authority contemplates further action, but I doubt whether at present there is anything that my right hon. Friend can do in the matter.

Mr. Fletcher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this nuisance is not con-

fined to any one area but is common thoughout the Metropolis? A growing number of residents are being increasingly disturbed at the practice of lorries parking outside their residences very often through long periods of the day as well as at night. What general instructions has the Home Secretary given to the Commissioner of Police on the subject?

Mr. Vosper: In general, and in the instance to which the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) referred, sufficient powers have been available. In this case, and I have no doubt in others, the police have exercised considerable effort to try to mitigate the nuisance, with some effect.

Oral Answers to Questions — West Indian Immigrants

Mr. C. Osborne: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in view of the fact that Her Majesty's Government have recently urged the West Indian Government to maintain and, if necessary, strengthen their efforts to reduce immigration into the United Kingdom, whether he will now reconsider his policy regarding immigration and insist upon all immigrants, irrespective of colour and race, being in good health, having no criminal record, and possessing sufficient money not to become a burden on the British social services; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have nothing to add to the statement which I made in reply to my hon. Friend's Question on 5th November last.

Mr. Osborne: The fact that nothing has happened since last November and that no further statement can be made prompts me to ask my right hon. Friend this: in view of the mounting disquiet and deep anxiety by great numbers of the general public at the flood of West Indian immigrants into this country, does not he think that this Government ought to do what he is asking the West Indian Governments to do—control and restrict immigration into this country? Or are we to take it that, whatever happens, no matter how many come to this country, my right hon. Friend has no intention of taking any action?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir. This latter part of that question should not be taken as


representing the truth. We are watching the situation very anxiously and carefully. The fact that I cannot make another statement today does not mean that I underestimate the importance of my hon. Friend's question. It is very unlikely that this country will turn away from her traditional policy of allowing free entry. Equally, we shall look, as he has said, to these Governments to try to help us with a voluntary restriction of migration to this country.

Mr. Speaker: Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux.

Mr. Osborne: I was not given this answer——

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) did not hear what I said. I called on Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux.

Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: Does my right hon. Friend realise that our old-age pensioners feel a real sense of grievance when they are told that their pensions cannot be raised, while at the same time they see people coming here from other Commonwealth countries and getting National Assistance as soon as they arrive? Will he consult the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to suggest the introduction of some system whereby such National Assistance payments can be repaid at a suitable weekly rate by such immigrants as soon as they obtain work?

Mr. Butler: This is governed by discussions with the Governments concerned. They have always taken into account the need for migrants to realise that they should try to come here when there is work for them to come to. I am certainly ready to discuss any aspect, but I am chiefly in contact with my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary.

Mr. C. Royle: Will the right hon. Gentleman refer his hon. Friends to the parable of the Good Samaritan?

Mr. Osborne: In view of the fact that I put this Question last November and was then asked to wait because the Government were investigating the position and I am told today to do the same thing, and in view of this enormous flood of people coming into this country, am I not entitled to ask for some action to be taken?

Mr. Butler: My hon. Friend is not correct in saying that. He is making an exaggerated statement himself. This matter is being most carefully watched, but while this country has been a free country and an island, it has always been a feature of its policy to provide free entry for British subjects. If anyone wishes to overturn this classical policy, we must approach it with deep caution and care. There is hope in the responsible attitude being adopted by the Governments of the Colonies concerned.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there will be general support on both sides of the House for the principles he has stated and the policy which he is following?

Oral Answers to Questions — Fuel Oil (Storage)

Mrs. Butler: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consideration he has given to the desirability of controlling the storage of fuel oil so as to minimise the fire risk therefrom.

Mr. Vosper: This question is at present under examination in consultation with representatives of the local authority associations concerned.

Mrs. Butler: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Working Party has before it reports of fires which take place, such as the one at the Standard Bottle Co., Ltd., Bounds Green, where apparently it was within the present regulations for 145,000 gallons of kerosene to be stored in the open where it is a source of great hazard to the firemen and concern to residents in the neighbourhood. Is the Working Party considering points of that kind?

Mr. Vosper: The Working Party is considering its collection of material. I do not know whether it has that case before it, but I will certainly see that particulars are obtained.

Oral Answers to Questions — Political Advertising (Expenditure)

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will initiate an inquiry into expenditure on political advertising between elections.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have no such inquiry in mind.

Mr. Grimond: Is the Home Secretary aware that his answer is not surprising,


but is it not quite anomalous to control expenditure tightly during a political campaign and leave the rest entirely free for people to spend what they like? Secondly, does not he think that it is now time for two reforms to be considered—first, that political parties should publish their balance sheets secondly, that public companies should inform their shareholders when they give donations to political parties or similar bodies?

Mr. Butler: It is well known that Section 63 of the Representation of the People Act, passed in 1949 under a Government composed of right hon. and hon. Members opposite, restricted statements of expenditure primarily to candidates. I was very impressed by an article in the News Chronicle of 9th June which, in effect, asked what would happen to campaigns like those against nationalisation or against nuclear disarmament—taking cases from different angles—if we were to follow the advice of the hon. Member. It went on to ask:
…is the citizen to be denied the right to spend money on propagating his views because they might affect the party struggle? And how is trade union support for labour to be supervised?

Miss Bacon: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what his difficulties are in setting up such an inquiry? Is he aware that the Leader of the Liberal Party is asking for this, and is he further aware that I, as chairman of the Labour Party's Publicity Committee, would be able to offer help to such an inquiry? Does he know that I could give a little information now, namely, that in the two years preceding the last General Election the head office of the Labour Party spent about £20,000 in poster advertising and nothing in newspaper advertising, compared with £500,000 spent by the Tory Party, and £1¼ million by their friends and associates?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady and the House at this point must be reminded that questions giving information are out of order.

Mr. Shinwell: Is not the right hon. Gentleman interested in finding out what the Tory Party spent on this advertising? Is it not one means of ascertaining the facts—or is it that the Tory Party could not make any progress or achieve any success without extensive advertising of this kind, in contrast to the Labour Party?

Mr. Butler: I cannot accept the figures that have been bandied about the House. Secondly, the difference between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party is that we have something to advertise and they have not. Thirdly, I see no likelihood of this law being easily enforceable if it were brought in, even if it were desirable. Therefore, I am not in favour of an inquiry.

Oral Answers to Questions — Pigalle Restaurant (Demonstrators)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to an incident outside the Pigalle Restaurant on the night of 7th June when a number of Fascist demonstrators shouted offensive racialist slogans at an American artist; and why those who organised and took part in this demonstration have not been prosecuted.

Mr. Vosper: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 23rd June to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd). It is for the police to decide, in the circumstances of any particular case, whether there should be a prosecution.

Mr. Driberg: That answer was evasive and jejune, as Written Answers customarily are. Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is correct, as stated in a number of reports, that these demonstrators were allowed by the police to assemble for a considerable time before the artist in question emerged after his show and that they were obviously waiting far him with banners making their object quite clear? Why were they not dispersed before? Were not they causing an obstruction, guilty of insulting words and behaviour, and conduct calculated to cause a breach of the peace? Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is rather a neat and regrettable antithesis between the gentle handling of Fascists and the very swift handling of anti-Fascist demonstrators outside South Africa House?

Mr. Vosper: My information is that the police were on duty outside the Pigalle Restaurant from 9.30 p.m. to 3.30 a.m., and that for most of this time a few demonstrators showed relatively innocuous posters. When more offensive


posters were displayed the police asked the people concerned to disperse, which they duly did. In the circumstances it seems right that the police did not pursue prosecutions.

Mr. Driberg: What is a comparatively innocuous poster?

Oral Answers to Questions — Public Expenditure

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has for improving the control of the House of Commons over public expenditure.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Following on the conclusion of certain consultations which are taking place, I shall hope to make a statement as to how we should tackle these matters in the next Session, before we rise for the Summer Recess.

Mr. Grimond: I should like to express the hope that the right hon. Gentleman has more success in controlling this sort of expenditure. May we expect a statement in a definite form, or has it not yet been worked out?

Mr. Butler: It depends on certain consultations, some of which I am having today with hon. and right hon. Members opposite. I then hope to make an announcement before we rise.

Oral Answers to Questions — Factory and Shop Premises (Fire Safety Precautions)

Mrs. Braddock: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what consideration he has given to the need to improve safety precautions against fire in large shops and departmental stores in which members of the public and employees may be present; and if he will introduce legislation to enable local authorities and fire authorities to prescribe the measures to be taken in the areas for which they are responsible, and to inspect the arrangements made;
(2) if he will introduce legislation with regard to standard fire precautions in departmental stores similar to the Factories Act, 1959, which contains powers for the Government to make regulations an standards of fire prevention, fire equipment, fire warning systems, exit signs and means of escape in factory premises.

Mr. Vosper: My right hon. Friend has this matter very much in mind, but he is not as yet in a position to make any statement about legislation.

Mrs. Braddock: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that these Questions arise out of the very distressing fire in Liverpool? Can he say when the report of the inquiry will be completed? In view of the fact that the existing legislation dealing with precautions against fire in shops is contained in the Public Health Act, 1936, and, in Liverpool, the Local Government Act, 1921, does not he consider that the time has arrived when all this legislation should be reconsidered in order to give fire authorities the right to deal with the question of fire precautions in shops?

Mr. Vosper: On the first part of that supplementary question, my right hon. Friend has received a report from his chief inspector, but he cannot make a statement until the conclusion of the inquest. As to the second part of the question, it was for just that reason that my right hon. Friend has for some time been giving consideration to this problem.

Mr. Tilney: Has the Home Secretary given further consideration to the desirability of having a full public inquiry into the ghastly disaster in Liverpool?

Mr. Vosper: I do not think that I should add to what I have said about this incident, except that my right hon. Friend is aware of my hon. Friend's request.

Oral Answers to Questions — Royal Commission on Police (Report)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects the interim report on pay of the Royal Commission on the Police to be ready.

Mr. R. A. Butler: The Royal Commission announced in February that it hoped to present an interim report on this subject before the end of this year. I understand that this remains its intention.

Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many thousands of good men have left the police force since the end of the war because of the inadequacy of rates of pay, and that many more are


considering doing so if their claim for adequate scales of pay is not met quickly? Could not the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, ask the Royal Commission to speed up the introduction of its interim report, because the delay of another six months may mean that we shall lose considerably more men?

Mr. Butler: The Royal Commission is aware of the urgency of this matter, but I shall see that the interchange of question and answer in the House today is sent to it so that it is continually aware of the urgency of reporting.

Oral Answers to Questions — POSTMASTER-GENERAL (SPEECH)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Prime Minister whether the speech made by the Postmaster-General at the annual dinner of the Telecommunications Engineering and Manufacturing Association last February about existing weaknesses in Post Office policy represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): The speech of my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General was entirely consistent with Her Majesty's Government's policy, which is to maintain an efficient and up-to-date Post Office.

Mr. Hughes: Is not this a rather interesting and exotic example of self-criticism and self-condemnation by a Minister in a Government whose party has been in office for eight years? Will the Prime Minister, either himself or through his Minister, clarify the weaknesses in policy to which the Minister referred in that speech?

The Prime Minister: I would remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that if he will consult Cmnd. 989, which was laid in March of this year, he will see that there was a whole series of proposals for changes in Post Office management, and especially with regard to the practical recognition of its commercial character, upon which we hope to legislate next year.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (SPEECH)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Prime Minister if the speech of the President of the Board of Trade in

Washington on or about 15th June, when he warned Great Britain against economic threats from the European Common Market, represents Government policy.

The Prime Minister: I presume that the hon. and learned Member is referring to an answer which my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade gave to a question from an American journalist on 14th June. He then said that the present economic division of Europe threatened the normal development of European trade, including our own, even though this was not the design or intention of the members of the Common Market. This is also the view of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Prime Minister aware that recent Ministerial statements on this subject indicate that the policy of the Government is a confused mass of threats and fears arising from the situation in Europe? In the interests of industry and progress in Britain, will he do something to clarify the situation and remove the threats?

The Prime Minister: As I said on 28th June, what we want is an arrangement for a partnership between the two groupings for a common system of European trade. That implies, first, loyalty to our friends in the E.F.T.A. and, secondly, every possible effort to reach agreement between the Six and the Seven to see how this larger system can be brought about. We are anxious for that.

Mr. Osborne: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that there is a danger that economic threats from the Six have been over-exaggerated? Is it not the case that the Seven can well enough stand on their own feet and will probably prove to be more stable that the Six?

The Prime Minister: I am sure that the organisation of the Seven will prove successful but I still believe that, both in the short term and in the long term, we ought to try every means to bring about harmony. I think the House will agree that this is rather a large question to debate by Question and Answer, and I think that in the debate next week there are likely to be opportunities for more detailed discussion. Perhaps I


may be allowed to close on the hope that we shall, with patience and effort, arrive at some good conclusion.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I agree that it is difficult to discuss these matters by Question and Answer, but I do not feel that a debate on the economic situation is the adequate forum we require for this purpose? There are many other things which we wish to discuss in that debate. Will the right hon. Gentleman have a word with the Leader of the House and suggest that the Government make time for a debate on our economic relations with Europe before the Recess?

The Prime Minister: I mentioned that matter because I have been—perhaps wrongly—informed that it is likely to be a subject which, with others, will come up on that occasion. I will consult the Leader of the House, and if arrangements can be made so that we can complete the business of the House in the remaining Supply Days and, I hope, finish our work before the Bank Holiday, it would be a good thing.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business of the House for next week?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business of next week will be as follows:

MONDAY, 11TH JULY—Supply [21st Allotted Day]: Committee.

A debate will take place on the Economic Situation.

Consideration of the Motions to approve the Cinematograph Films (Collection of Levy) and the (Distribution of Levy) (Amendment) Regulations.

TUESDAY, 12TH JULY-Supply [22nd Allotted Day]: Committee, which it is proposed to take formally.

Debate on Industry and Employment in Scotland which will arise on a Government Motion to take note of the White Paper (Command No. 1045).

Consideration of the Motions to approve the Cotton Finishing (Woven Cloth) and the (Yarn Processing) Reorganisation Scheme (Confirmation) Orders.

WEDNESDAY, 13TH JULY—Supply [23rd Allotted Day]: Committee, which it is proposed to take formally.

Conclusion of the debate on Industry and Employment in Scotland.

THURSDAY, 14TH JULY—Second Reading of the Cyprus Bill.

FRIDAY, 15TH JULY—Second Reading of the Nigeria Independence Bill and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.

Report and Third Reading of the Charities Bill [Lords].

Second Reading of the Films Bill [Lords], which is a consolidation Measure.

MONDAY, 18TH JULY—The proposed business will be, Supply [24th Allotted Day]: Committee.

A debate on the Use and Price of Land.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he is aware of the strong feeling which exists on both sides of the House that we ought not to adjourn for the Summer Recess without discussing the problem of our economic relations with Europe? Is he aware that we feel that this is a subject for which the Government ought to find time and that we hope that he will be able to do so before the Recess?

Mr. Butler: I cannot give any undertaking about time. I listened to the interchanges with the Prime Minister just now and I will discuss the matter with my right hon. Friend. I ought also not to put out of my mind that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends might consider that a suitable subject for a Supply day.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Do I understand that the debate on Tuesday will take place on a Supply day, formally taken, followed by a Government Motion and a Division? Is not this an extraordinary precedent for a Supply day? Does it not fly in the face of the general opinion of the House in the debate on 19th March this year, to which my right hon. Friend responded?

Mr. Butler: This is taking note of a White Paper and there are precedents for this on previous occasions. In fact, this debate will last for two days. There is a precedent for that. I would remind


my noble Friend that we are also engaged in discussions about how the House can more closely supervise expenditure. This arises on matters of that sort, but I do not think that it renders invalid the procedure on this occasion.

Mr. Wigg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he made an announcement about the 24th Supply day, which means that there are only two Supply days left, the 25th and the 26th, and that on both of those days the Guillotine falls? The right hon. Gentleman has made no announcement about what is to happen regarding the Monk Resolutions? Is he aware that this is an important consideration for the Armed Forces, as it is the first time that this procedure has been adopted under the amended Standing Orders. Should not the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what the Government are up to?

Mr. Butler: The Government are conducting business with their usual efficiency. The remaining two Supply days are in the power of the Opposition. There is also the Appropriation Bill.
On the particular point which the hon. Member, with his knowledge of procedure, put to me, if he will give me notice I shall be glad to consider it and the possibility of making a statement.

Mr. S. Silverman: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what consideration he has given to affording time to the House of Commons before we adjourn for the Summer Recess to discuss a situation which is regarded, both inside and outside the House, as disturbing if not alarming? I refer to the use of bases in this country by a foreign air force for flights which are admitted to be in breach of international law and which, obviously, may have very important consequences to this country.
At the moment—I cannot ask a question about it now—the Government are taking the position that they will not tell us whether or not such a flight happened, whether or not they were consulted, whether or not they approve, and what is the situation. This is not a situation in which the House of Commons can be left without an early opportunity to discuss it, so that it may be cleared up. Will the right hon. Gentleman, as Leader of the House and acting in the interests of all hon. Members, tell us

whether he will be able to provide time for the discussion of this matter, and for clearing it up before we adjourn for the Summer Recess?

Mr. Butler: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is answering Questions on this issue on Tuesday and I think that we had better wait until then.

Mr. Eden: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the statement on Government expenditure will be debatable either on a Supply day or in the Appropriation Bill debate?

Mr. Butler: It will be essentially a statement of procedure. To that extent it would be difficult to debate it without a special Motion, which I was not at present contemplating. It will not operate until next Session, so that I do not think that hon. Members need be inhibited on the subject. They can always raise it next Session. It is principally an indication of how—in the general interest of hon. Members and after consultation not only through the usual channels, but with private Members—we think that this matter can best be tackled. I will certainly discuss the matter with my hon. Friends.

Mr. Short: Has the Leader of the House seen the resolution from the Scottish T.U.C. asking for legislation on fares, which was passed unanimously, and which I sent to him last week? Will he now give time for the Second Reading of the Public Service Vehicles (Travel Concessions) Act, 1955 (Amendment) Bill?
Is he aware of another development in this matter, that this week a Select Committee in another place threw out the concession Clause in the Newcastle upon Tyne Corporation Bill? Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect saying that he thought that the Public Service Vehicles Measure ought to go through Parliament? Is he aware that in the Committee in another place Mr. Roland Adams, Q.C., said, "You have before you a powerful recommendation from the Minister of Transport that this Clause be disallowed"?
When are we to have an end to this hypocrisy of giving us things with one hand and taking them away with the other? When will the Leader of the House do something about the fares of old, blind, and disabled people?

Mr. Butler: The position is rather more complicated and difficult than would be appear from the intervention of the hon. Member. I have studied the resolution and looked again at the Bill. Very important principles are involved, but I cannot promise to find the time asked for by the hon. Member.

Dame Irene Ward: In the debate on Scottish industry and employment, arising out of the White Paper, may I ask whether the Government will be prepared to allow a discussion of the Chandos Committee's Report? Would it be possible for an Englishwoman to intervene in a debate on Scottish affairs?

Mr. Butler: The question of those who catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, is a matter for your discretion.

Mr. Janner: Will the Leader of the House say whether he proposes to give an opportunity for discussion of the Albemarle Report before the House rises, particularly in view of the fact that it is a very considerable time since it was issued and there is grave concern throughout the country about the youth situation?

Mr. Butler: At this time of year there is always a great number of candidates for discussion. I cannot give an absolute undertaking.

Mr. Janner: Has not the right hon. Gentleman himself expressed the view that this matter is of very considerable importance? Will he say why he now feels that he cannot give time for such an important discussion to take place?

Mr. Butler: I have not withdrawn from my view of its great importance. In fact, we propose to take certain steps to pursue the path suggested, but it is a question of time.

Mr. Healey: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when we can expect publication of the White Paper on the disarmament talks in Geneva?

Mr. Butler: I will consult my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and inform the hon. Member on the matter.

Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN (TRIBUTES)

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): By a long-hallowed custom, this House marks the passing of one of its more eminent members by special tributes to his memory. Judged by any standard, we are right to follow this tradition today, for by the death of Aneurin Bevan we have lost a great personality and a great national figure.
Nothing was more striking than the surge of sympathy at the time of his grave illness some months ago. This feeling was spontaneous; and it was shared by men and women of every class and every party, including those whom he had in the past attacked most fiercely. This is perhaps typical of our way of life in this country. Yet it may perhaps be wondered why a man who had been all through his life a somewhat controversial figure should have ended by commanding such general admiration and affection.
I think that it was, perhaps, for two reasons. First, he was a genuine man. There was nothing fake or false about him. If he felt a thing deeply, he said so and in no uncertain terms. If he had a strong opinion—even prejudices—he expressed them strongly, but sincerely. Secondly, he was a bonny fighter—and a chivalrous one. If he struck blows which sometimes aroused angry retaliation he was always ready to receive blows in return. Moreover, if he sometimes spoke violently, he was never dull. He was sometimes harsh; he was never trite.
Finally, he expressed in himself and in his career, in his life, some of the deepest feelings of humble people throughout the land. Unlike many prophets, he was specially honoured in his own country. He was a keen politician, but he never played at politics. He was something of a revolutionary; he was always a patriot. And, beneath the charm and ebullience of his Celtic temperament, he was a deeply serious man.
In addition, with growing experience, he found many contacts with life in many forms. He was a highly cultivated man; fond of art and artists, of literature and writers; he mixed in a wide circle. But with all this, he retained his


natural simplicity. There was no pretence about him, none of the sham culture of second-hand opinions. All through his life he was true to himself.
To us in this House his death makes a gap not easily filled. He was a great Parliamentarian and he became a supreme master of the strangely elusive art of Parliamentary speaking. He could be an orator in a way which is now supposed to be out of fashion. At the same time, he could argue a detailed case with consummate skill. In neither mood was he ever commonplace; whether in sustained rhetorical effort or in detailed Parliamentary debating.
During the years between the wars we were back benchers together and, in a sense, something of rebels together—hence our friendship, for he was a friend everywhere in the House, in the Chamber and in the Smoking Room. He belonged to the House of Commons. He was always an agreeable and stimulating companion. I remember vividly some of his speeches during that period, only equalled and hardly surpassed by the rhetoric of "Jimmy" Maxton. His tongue was sometimes harsh—I have more than once been under the lash myself —but he had a great sense of fun and, amid the storms, the sun kept coming out.
By younger members of this House who have only seen him in recent years, he will be remembered as a great Parliamentary performer, but also as a man who never failed in a speech, whether a good one or a bad one, to say something unusual, interesting, paradoxical perhaps, epigrammatic, but with a touch of real philosophy behind it.
We who have lived intimately with him so many years in this House feel a great blank. To his widow we would wish to pay a tribute of respectful sympathy. For all those in his own party and in the movements with which he was associated this sad event is, of course, a special loss. But, more than that, it marks the passing of a man who has impressed his character upon all those who were privileged to be in contact with him. We all, inside and outside the House, of every party and of every shade of opinion, are the poorer by the death of Aneurin Bevan.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Hugh Gaitskell: I thank the Prime Minister for the moving and impressive tribute, delivered in such well chosen words, to our right honourable Friend.
This is for all of us an immensely sad occasion. It is not only that Aneurin Bevan was pre-eminent—as the Prime Minister has said—in those arts of Parliamentary speech, debate, question and answer, repartee and exchange on which the reputation of this House rests. It is that he was also a man of warmth and passion, of imagination and humour, of gaiety and of vitality and conviction, of independent, fiercely held, forthright opinions, of towering personality.
So it seems to me that his death is as if a fire had gone out—a fire which we sometimes found too hot, by which we were sometimes scorched, a fire which flamed and flickered unpredictably, but a fire which warmed and cheered us and stimulated us, a fire which affected the atmosphere of our lives here and which illuminated all our proceedings. Now that it has gone out, I think that we are peculiarly conscious of the change, of a certain coldness and greyness that has come.
Here in this House most of us would think, first, of Aneurin Bevan's speeches —and there are many great ones from which we can choose our favourites, according, no doubt, to whether we were the victims or the accomplices. I recall two, in particular, which he made during the period of the Labour Government. One was his reply to the criticisms of our economic policy in 1949, which had been levelled with great force by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), when Mr. Bevan, in a famous phrase, welcomed the
opportunity of pricking the bloated bladder of lies with the poniard of truth."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th September, 1949; Vol. 468. c. 310.]
The other was his winding-up speech in the defence debate of February, 1951. which I heard Mr. Attlee afterwards describe to him as the finest of all his speeches.
Whether we were his friends or his victims, we join in tribute to his extraordinary powers—the devastating metaphors, the superb imagery, the far-ranging vocabulary, the search—I so much agree with the Prime Minister here —not only for the original phrase, but


for the unusual idea, looking beyond the hill, as it were, or, as one correspondent described it recently, for the back of the moon. These are all so fresh in our memories.
Aneurin Bevan seldom used notes, and when he did it was often a failure. I was always nervous when I saw a large package of notes on the Box. Once, when I told him how much I envied his gift of spontaneous eloquence, he said, "I have far more difficulty than you. I just cannot speak from notes. So I have to prepare my speeches all the more carefully". No doubt he did prepare them in his mind, but there was no question of learning by heart. Perhaps the general shape and most of the ideas were thought out beforehand, as well as some of those flashing phrases, but the speech, as all who watched him know, was the most natural, spontaneous affair, and no rehearsed, artificial performance.
There are others here who knew Aneurin Bevan longer and more intimately than I did. But it was my lot to be thrown together with him much in these last fifteen years—first of all, in the Labour Government. His public record there is part of history and needs no words of embellishment from me. What is perhaps not so universally known is the great respect and admiration felt for him by his civil servants. To have a good Whitehall reputation is not everything, but those who have held office know what a shrewd and objective critic the Civil Service is of its political masters. And in the case of Aneurin Bevan, this highly favourable judgment of those who worked for him was to be added to his other, more obvious and well-known qualities.
No one would describe him as an easy man. His tempestuous temperament and his forceful personality made it inevitable that he should make enemies. Sometimes I thought that he did so unnecessarily. But he also had immense charm. I recall many occasions on which this was used to our great advantage. I remember one evening in particular, when Sir Stafford Cripps was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had arranged in those days for a group of Ministers chiefly concerned with production, but including Aneurin Bevan, to dine together regularly to try to clear out of the way, informally over the table, any disputes

which had arisen and generally to see that we were keeping in step.
Occasionally, we had visitors, including visitors from overseas. Once we were to entertain an American Congressman, the chairman of a vitally important committee who was said to be notoriously anti-British. We looked forward with some trepidation to this dinner. We were not quite sure how it would turn out, and, in particular, we were not quite sure how "Nye" would get on with our visitor. We need not have worried. He completely entranced the Congressman by his wit and humour and good temper, and by the end of the evening they were bosom friends, bursting into laughter at this sally or that.
It is well known that for a few years after 1951 he and I were very much at odds, and our personal relations were strained. The House will understand if I pass over this unhappy period. But it is a measure of the stature of Aneurin Bevan that when it was over he was willing and able to overcome any feelings of bitternees and hostility which he may have had and to work together with me in what I feel was a loyal and fruitful partnership.
I am very glad that we had these years together. We did not always agree, even then. In committee, as well as in Cabinet, he was a forceful and persuasive advocate. With his great personal drive and his intellectual brilliance, he was not easy to resist, and of course, occasionally there were clashes. But, in fact, they were remarkably few. For the most part, surprising as it may seem, after the earlier clashes between us we found ourselves in agreement. He was an exceedingly shrewd and experienced Parliamentary tactician whose advice was of great value to us, and as a colleague, once the course was determined, he was the most vigorous partner one could have wished for —staunch, courageous, forthright and dominant.
Yet if I am asked for my strongest impression of Aneurin Bevan, it is not as a brilliant speaker, or as a forceful colleague, but as a great and human personality. We went to Russia together last summer, and I have especially happy memories of that visit. I am not thinking of any international value it may have had, but of the experience which I gained of being with him at this time.
Despite the shadow of his approaching illness, he was in brilliant form throughout the whole period. He was utterly frank with our Russian hosts, never for one moment disguising his criticisms of their system but spicing his comments with wit and humour which charmed them. I remember especially one extraordinary evening in which he bewildered our Russian companions with a tremendous onslaught on what he regarded as the bourgeois puritanism displayed in the Soviet Union, and in doing so he revealed a huge range of knowledge of literature, of poets and of history, exploding into laughter at the end of each sally.
This brings me to the last thing which I want to say about him. He was a man of passion and prejudice, but his prejudices and passions were completely honest and natural. He believed passionately, for instance, in personal liberty and the right to privacy. He hated passionately vulgarity and squalor and snobbery and injustice. He was, as the Prime Minister has said, an exceedingly cultured man, very well read and very interested in the arts. He was a great admirer of modern painting. I once stayed with him in one of our embassies abroad where, to his delight, he found that the ambassador was a collector of abstract art. They had a very good time together. Later, we visited the Brussels Exhibition of Modern Painting, and for me it was a great experience to be with him there.
Aneurin Bevan was always fearless in advocating what he believed and, with all his magnetic qualities, he did not court popularity. He was without guile. He made enemies as well as friends, but even his enemies never failed to recognise his outstanding qualities and the power of his presence. Even those who were his victims came to have not only respect but a deep and abiding affection for him.
I know that all of us here, regardless of party, are filled with sorrow that he has gone and are proud that we have known him. We send to his widow, our friend and colleague, our very deep sympathy. In these last months she has borne, and borne nobly, a most cruel strain, and on her now falls the heaviest burden of all. I hope that she may be sustained by the universal outburst of

sorrow, not only in this House or in Britain but throughout the world, which has followed his death, and by the moving and sincere tributes paid everywhere to one of the great men of our time.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Clement Davies: Throughout the House, irrespective of party, and, indeed, throughout the country, we mourn the passing of a great leader, a superb fighter for human rights, and a fighter for the suppression of inequality and suffering. From everywhere in the world this morning come expressions of deep genuine sorrow.
I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for calling me to pay my tribute to such a distinguished fellow countryman, with whom I was so closely associated for over thirty years. But Aneurin Bevan was more than a fellow countryman of the Welsh people. He was, in sympathy, the fellow countryman of any man of any nation throughout the world, ever ready to defend that man, whatever his race, his colour, or his creed, and demand for him equality of rights with all his fellow beings on earth. He hated suffering. He hated inequality. He hated injustice. He hated domination, however and by whomsoever exercised. But, above all, he hated hypocrisy.
Aneurin Bevan's supreme qualities were superb, unflinching moral courage, deep sincerity, and complete selflessness. That was his supreme strength. Once he had decided upon the course to pursue, decided its rightness and its purpose, he never hesitated to follow it, and to follow it unswervingly. I have never known a man less concerned with his own personal welfare, or his own personal advancement. Whether his advocacy on a particular policy or a particular action would advance his own position, or would harm his own position, never received from him the slightest consideration. He was not interested in that. To him such a matter was beneath him and beneath his contempt.
Had he been more of a politician and more concerned about himself, he would not have suffered the setbacks and humiliations that would have struck dawn many a lesser man. It has been said, and rightly, that he attacked the big men of his day. Yes, he did so; but


he did not attack them because of their greatness. Still less to draw attention to himself as one who was not afraid of the seemingly unconquerable foe. No, he attacked because he felt that an injustice was being done and that the injustice caused suffering and humiliation to his fellow human beings. He attacked to remove that injustice, that pain, that suffering, and that humiliation.
If, perchance, a great, well-known and respected person was, in his opinion, in the main responsible for that injustice or suffering, that was the one to attack. He would do so vehemently. He would do it eloquently. He would do it fiercely. He would do it effectively. The personality of that particular man did not matter. It was the injustice that had to be removed that mattered.
I well remember his maiden speech, which caused as great a sensation as that of Mr. F. E. Smith in 1906. He attacked with knowledge, with purpose and with effect the one whom he considered to be responsible for the low wages of the miners, for the dangers which faced the miners, for the suffering of the miners, and for the suffering of the miners' families.
The House has lost a great Parliamentarian. The country has lost a great leader. Not only is this House, not only is his own country of Wales, not only is Britain and the great Commonwealth poorer, but the world itself is the poorer for the passing of a great, broad-minded, intensely human leader and an inspirer of the highest and noblest thoughts which he would, whenever he could, have translated into action for the benefit of humanity.
There was nothing mean or petty about Aneurin Bevan. He was upright; he was downright; he was forthright. Statesman, administrator, Parliamentarian, orator, incomparable advocate for the weak and the suffering and for justice everywhere, he was, at the same time, a true, sincere, lovable friend, whose memory every one of us will long cherish. To his widow, who has long been our colleague, every one of us desires to extend our deepest sympathy.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. James Griffiths: Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to you and to the House, for its courtesy in granting me

this privilege of joining in the tributes to a very old friend and colleague. I want to associate with the tributes, in particular, those colleagues of mine who, in the miners' group and in the Welsh Labour Group, were so closely associated with Aneurin Bevan. We also desire to convey to his widow and to his family our heartfelt sympathy in their grief and sorrow.
This is a sad day in every mining village in this land. In every coalfield and in every coal mining village they will be sorrowfully saying to each other today, "Our Nye has gone", for he was. "Our Nye" to all of them. They were proud of the pitboy who reached eminence in the councils of the nations and prouder still that, having risen, his heart was always back home in the valley and with his old mates.
I was privileged to know Aneurin Bevan over very many years and I know that if he were here today he would want to say, and would want me to say, how much he owed to the community in which he was reared. I know that he would want me to say a word about Tredegar. He was deeply rooted in the life of his valley and deeply attached to his native town. The valleys and villages, torn and scarred by a century of industrialism, are nothing much to look at, but they are wonderful places to grow up in. They contain homes that are sanctuaries for all that is best in the mind and the spirit. They are communities with a deep sense of neighbourhood, where one man's success is everyone's joy and one man's adversity is everybody's burden. I am thinking today of Tredegar and of those valleys. We have lost one of our greatest sons.
We used to exchange stories about our country and about our people. There was one story of which he was very fond, because he thought that it expressed something profoundly true about the background of our life. It is said that one day a stranger came to the valley and climbed the hillside. In the garden outside a cottage he saw a collier, still in his working clothes, digging the rocky soil. The stranger looked for a while, and then said to the collier, "My good man, what can you possibly grow in soil like this?" The collier looked up, and replied, "Men." That is what the valleys produce.
In paying this tribute to this greatest of the sons of the valley, I pray that our beloved valleys may yet, in the years to come, have the privilege of producing men of the calibre of our dear Aneurin Bevan.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[The Prime Minister.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[20TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1960–61

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a further sum, not exceeding £40, be granted to Her Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961, for the following services connected with Beach Pollution by Sewage, namely:—

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1960–61



£


Class V, Vote 1 (Minister of Housing and Local Government)
10


Class V, Vote 3 (Exchequer Grants to Local Revenues, (England and Wales)
10


Class V, Vote 9 (Department of Health for Scotland) (Revised Estimate)
10


Class V, Vote 12 (Exchequer Grants to Local Revenues, Scotland)
10

BEACHES (POLLUTION)

4.12 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I am sure that the Committee will understand when I say that after the speeches to which we have just listened it is not an easy task for the Member who has first to take up more routine duties, and that opening this debate is not something that I can do with a light heart.
For our discussion today we have a subject of specialised range, but of wide interest—the pollution of the beaches by sewage. It might be regarded as part of the wider question of pollution of river as well as sea water, not only by sewage but by other forms of contamination, but in the limited time available I believe that it is right to devote special attention to this one problem of sewage pollution of the beaches. As I say, if it is a subject of narrow scope, it has grown steadily over the last few years into a subject of wide general interest.
There are very many bathing beaches around the coast—the total number must run into many hundreds—and one gets authentic, reliable reports from every part


of the country of beaches made unfit for decent use by sewage pollution. I find, for example, reports of that kind coming from Bournemouth, from the Devon and Cornish coasts, from Whitley Bay in the North, from Hoylake in Cheshire, from New Brighton—from almost every strip of our coast that is favoured by holidaymakers.
Having mentioned some of those places by name, it is fair to say that Bournemouth, for example, is now engaging on a very considerable project for dealing with sewage, and that the Devon County Council is engaging on a survey of its beaches with a view to dealing with this nuisance.
In addition to the examples—and they could be multiplied— that I have mentioned, there is one that has received, perhaps, the most frequent and striking mention; the one sometimes referred to as the "Solent Sewer". Possibly, it has been given special publicity by the public-spirited activity of Mr. Wakefield, of the Coastal Anti-Pollution League. He is, I understand, a constituent of the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) and, if I may say so, Sir Gordon, I hope that the hon. Member may catch your eye at a later stage in the debate.
The Coastal Anti-Pollution League is performing a valuable service, first, in drawing attention to the extent of evil, and, more recently, in supplying the public with a list of beaches where it can be said that good precautions have been taken to make them healthy and attractive. Those who, like myself, are fond of taking their holidays in the Isle of Purbeck will be gratified to notice how many of the beaches in that part of the country figures in that golden list.
There has been some suggestion that it was, in some way, improper for a private voluntary organisation to set itself up as a judge of the suitability and attractiveness of bathing beaches, but part of the case that I want to make is that in the absence of any kind of official standard of cleanliness or decency, a private body has rendered a valuable service in filling that gap, and the Government should consider whether they ought not to establish a generally recognised standard for a decent and cleanly beach.
How do people become aware of the fact that some of our beaches are polluted? They do not need to do it by reading scientific documents; they can do it by the evidence of their five senses. A bather can come into contact with a mass of sewage actually while he is bathing. Those who have not entered the sea can observe the filthy scum along the beach. The presence of pollution can also be observed by the sense of smell, or, if we want a more permanent record, there is that which the camera can supply.
The Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary may be interested in a photograph I have here. It is a photograph of the shore of a Marine Lake, at New Brighton. They will be able to see its disfigurement with sewage. In this second photograph they will be able to see a party of guests at the café that forms part of this Marine Lake having to take their meal in the near presence of a mass of filth, so much of which had been deposited that it was quite impossible for the proprietor to clear it all away before he was obliged to open his premises for business. It is true that the lumps of timber shown in the photograph, deposited by the joint action of the tides and of the River Mersey, are, perhaps, a little outside the scope of our debate, but the dead rats, and filth and certain other matter are certainly part of what we are now discussing.
Finally, those who do not become aware of the nuisance by any more obvious method can adopt the more recondite course of reading the Circulars issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government on 31st December, 1959. It refers to beaches that are grossly polluted. I do not think, therefore, that it will be disputed that this nuisance exists, and that it is a disgrace to the kind of standards that people normally expect at this date in our history.
Why has this gone on? I believe that one reason for its persistence is that there has been some paralysis of both judgment and action during recent years because it was known that a committee of the Public Health Laboratory Service was inquiring into the health aspects of the matter. For a long time, whenever the subject was raised, the stock answer was, "We shall have the report from the


Public Health Laboratory Service and then, perhaps, we shall know how serious it is and what we ought to do". With the very greatest respect to the eminent people on the committee which made that inquiry, we are obliged to notice that they took six years over it, six years during which it was often felt proper to suspend judgment and to delay action.
We now have their verdict. My hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes) who will, I hope, catch your eye at the end of the debate, Sir Gordon, will be considering more narrowly than I shall the medical aspects of that verdict. All I want to say at this stage is that there was only one question which the committee was set and only one which it attempted to answer, namely, can we, on the evidence at present available, say for certain that there is a causal connection between bathing in contaminated sea water and catching poliomyelitis, typhoid, or certain other diseases? That is the only matter with which the report is concerned.
The only thing the report tells us is that, on present evidence, it cannot he said that there is such a causal connection. Even that limited conclusion is qualified by the statement that there may be some revolting beaches in respect of which one could not give even that exemption from evil effect on health. I notice that, during their six years, the 18 members of the committee examined about 40 beaches. As far as I can discover from a study of the report, they did not bathe on any of the beaches. They relied on tests of the sea water. One must remember that, after all, an expert, by derivation, is a person who has experience of something. If one wants to examine not merely the scientific, health aspect of the matter, but the aspect of public decency, it may be necessary to bathe on the beaches as well as to examine the contents of samples of the sea water.
I have used the term "decency". The committee rather quaintly calls it the aesthetic aspect of the matter. I cannot help making one direct reference to the report. When dealing with the desirability of pounding up or disintegrating masses of human sewage before pushing it into the sea, the committee, at the end of its report, reaches the conclusion that the disintegration of masses

of human excreta may be aesthetically desirable. That is a conclusion with which, I think, most hon. Members of this Committee would agree. Some of us would go even further.
That is the matter with which we are concerned. I called it public decency. It seems to me that decency, cleanliness, or amenity are all more suitable words than the rather curious reference to the aesthetic aspect of the matter. The extent of the problem is undisputed. Its affront to decency is undisputed. What can local authorities do? First, they can consider the treatment to which they subject sewage before they put it anywhere. The practice of local authorities in this respect seems to vary greatly.
Public interest has centred recently on the enterprise of the Island of Jersey in its treatment of sewage. It has, apparently, managed not only to obviate offence to health and decency, but even to turn its activities into a profitable business. One could not say categorically that what Jersey has done could be done by every local authority faced with a similar problem, but one can certainly say that, that if one puts what is done there at one end of the scale, and one puts at the other end the complete failure to carry out any adequate processes at all observable in some local authority areas, there is a very great gap in practice between the two, and an effort ought to be made to bring the most laggard authorities nearer to the standards of the best.
After the treatment of sewage there comes the disposal of whatever must remain after such treatment. Those who live in the area of the London County Council may be proud of the fact that that authority puts the stuff on ships and takes it a long way out to sea, so far that it is quite impossible for any offence to either health or decency and amenity to arise. We must admit, I think, that not every authority could be expected to undertake an enterprise of that kind for which the great resources of a great authority are needed.
Many local authorities have to consider the siting of an outfall into the sea, and this, after treatment, is the next matter to which local authorities ought to give consideration. This, I believe, is a matter to which sufficient study has not yet been devoted. A good many


factors, it seems to me, on the information I have been able to collect, may determine what the form of an outfall should be. Clearly, among the questions one has to consider is how far out into the sea it will take the stuff. Very frequently, the answer is, "Not far enough".
There is then the relation between the position of the outfall and the movement of the tides. Opinion seems to vary on whether the nuisance actually becomes worse at high tide or at slack tide. So far as I can discover, it seems to vary from one area to another. Clearly, the action of the tides is one matter to be considered when an outfall is being sited. One has also to consider the configuration of the coast, any movement of currents in the sea that there may be, and probably the prevailing wind.
This is, surely, something to which human knowledge today is equal. Granted that there are all these factors, it should not take very long, if one collected together people having experience of the problem, to lay down a reasonable set of rules for the construction and siting of outfalls so as to protect for certain both health and decency.
If they are either to carry out proper treatment of sewage or, perhaps, to resite their outfalls into the sea, do local authorities need financial help? When one considers any local government problem, there is always a temptation to urge that the Government ought to give a grant to deal with the particular matter, and I admit that that is a temptation to which any hon. Member of the Opposition may be particularly prone. But I am obliged to notice one fact which stands out if one examines how much different authorities spend on sewage disposal.
I will take the figure of rate expenditure on sewage disposal per head of population. The average figure for county boroughs throughout the country is 17s. 3d. One coastal county borough, the Borough of Brighton, manages to solve the problem with an expenditure of only 4s. 3d. Another coastal authority, Wallasey, can do it for 3s. 6d. The average expenditure of non-county boroughs throughout the country is 19s. 1d. Dover is able to do it for 2s. 1ld. and Hythe for 6s. 8d. On looking through the list, one finds that the expenditure on sewage disposal of

authorities which have the sea at their door is substantially less.
I am not saying that a low figure for every authority means that it is not doing the job properly. I am saying that the presence of the sea makes it easier to do the job more cheaply and that if any authority is not doing the job properly it should look at what some of its inland neighbours have to spend on this problem before saying that it is a financial impossibility to deal with it.
There is, however, this aspect of the financial problem to which I think the Government should give attention. Let me mention a detail of administration. If an authority dealing with a problem of this kind is a rural district council it can apply to its county for a grant to help with sewage disposal. If the county makes a grant, financial help is also forthcoming from the central Government. However, no such expedient is available to an urban district or county borough. I wonder whether that is a satisfactory arrangement.
The next thing which I think the Government ought to look at is this. Granted that authorities might well be able, once they have a decent sewerage system, to maintain it properly out of their own resources, some authorities would be involved in fairly heavy capital expenditure to put it right. In such an instance, is there not a case for a special loan from the central Government? While we are on that topic, I wonder whether the Minister realises that, if he finds that local authorities are unwilling to engage in capital expenditure for this necessary work of health and decency, that is only to be expected in view of the general interest rate policy of the Government. We cannot go on for ever making it more difficult for local authorities to engaged in capital expenditure and expect proper standards of health and decency to be maintained.
I should like to sum up what I think the Government ought to be doing. I think that it is not unfair to say that they have not done very much so far. They issued a circular drawing the attention of authorities to the Public Health Laboratory's report and, indeed, even told them that if they wanted an extra copy they could get one from the Stationery Office. The Minister, in a Written


Answer to the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham, said, in effect, that it was the local authorities' business.
I learn from the Press that the Parliamentary Secretary met a group of hon. Members interested in seaside resorts and referred them, in the main, to the report of the Public Health Laboratory. The newspaper which described the proceedings unkindly likened the Parliamentary Secretary to an ostrich burying its head in the sand. In common charity, we must hope that the sand was not contaminated. Up to date, the Government have done nothing in this matter except to tell local authorities that they had better get on with the job.
In conclusion, I should like to suggest a possible programme of action to the Government. First, will they establish a nationally accepted standard for a decent beach? There are two ways in which that can be done—either have a fairly strict scientific standard, about which there are difficulties, although I an not satisfied that it is impossible, or have something less precise and formal even if it is no more than arranging, with the help of voluntary bodies, an annual competition, or device, to stimulate local authorities to keep their beaches up to what common sense, if not scientific knowledge, tells us is a proper standard of health and decency. Secondly, will they carry out a quick inquiry, not one that lasts six years, into methods of treatment of sewage and methods of siting outfalls?
I think that the necessary knowledge is available if the wisdom and experience of local authorities is pooled. It is really a question of making the practice of the best and most intelligent known to the rest. That ought to be a fairly speedy job, but it is a Government job. One of the tasks of the Government in the sphere of local government is the bringing together and pooling of the knowledge and experience of widely separated localities.
Thirdly, the Government should look at the particular aspects of the financial question which I have mentioned.
Fourthly, they should look again at their interest rate policy. We have in this matter a limited but very striking example of what we have come to call private affluence and public squalor. It is absurd

to create a society in which more people can afford to visit the seaside and have leisure and holidays, but in which the community as a whole is too poor, too weak, or too ignorant to keep the beaches which they visit in a decent condition. One of the contributory factors to that kind of society, based on private affluence and public squalor, is the hampering of public enterprise by high interest rates or loans for vital social work.
I put this to the Government as a short programme which would make a real impression on an admittedly nasty and urgent problem.

4.37 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): I shall try to comment on all the points made by the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart). If I may, I will take them in order as I deal with the subject as a whole.
Nearly all coastal authorities discharge sewage into the sea by way of sewage outfalls. In principle, this is a perfectly satisfactory method of sewage treatment provided that it is efficiently carried out. The sea is vast. The moving waters first greatly dilute and then purify sewage flowing into it provided that the point of discharge is suitably chosen. The very basis of sewage treatment is a supply of oxygen to enable the bacteria in the sewage to break down the organic matter into harmless materials. The sea has an inexhaustible supply of oxygen.
Sewage is not like oil. It disperses and is purified by the sea, but for this to occur the sea must be properly used. Local conditions, tides and winds must be taken into account. The outfall must be appropriately sited so that the sea carries away and dilutes the sewage. If for any local reason this is impracticable, steps ranging from screening right up to full treatment need to be considered. I will return to these steps later.
As the hon. Member for Fulham has said, the fact is that nearly all coastal authorities discharge sewage to the sea through sewage outfalls. We believe that when, after suitable tests, these outfalls are sited so that the sewage will be dispersed seawards without nuisance, this is a perfectly satisfactory method. But some outfalls, generally those built a long


time ago, have been found to be either badly sited, or too close in, or have been overloaded, or even fractured.
Partly for these reasons, and partly because in some cases local conditions make it appropriate, some coastal authorities have done or are doing work on their outfalls and/or have applied or are applying differing degrees of treatment. Some screen away the larger solids. Some arrange tidal tanks which release the sewage only when the tide is going out and the currents are suitable. Some give partial and a few full treatment. Some resorts, however, evidently have not yet taken the necessary action to remedy a state of pollution that can probably only come from trouble with their existing outfall.
The hon. Gentleman made great play with a list called the "golden list", which has been given some publicity in the Press. I think that, as he mentioned it, it would be only fair if I made a few comments on it. This list contains the names of 156 beaches. It was apparently compiled, at least partly, from returns to a questionnaire sent by the Coastal Anti-Pollution League to 221 authorities, of whom 105 did not reply. The list, therefore, was very far from being complete. Furthermore, many of the places named are in sparsely populated areas, where there is unlikely to be much sewage discharge anyway. There are many more beaches of this nature not included in the list.
The method of assessing the conditions of the beaches is not free from criticism, nor is the statement that the sewage on the beaches starred in the list is given treatment. The list, therefore, must be viewed with caution. Even so, it is notable that even the League appears to accept that outfalls need not give rise to pollution.
Some years ago, at a time when poliomyelitis was much in the news, there was a scare that such polluted water and beaches could endanger health. In 1953, the Public Health Laboratory Service set up a research committee to study the health aspects. The committee included 18 doctors out of 21 members. Its full report, a highly technical paper, was published in the December, 1959, issue of the Journal of Hygiene and, at the same time. M.R.C. Memorandum No. 37, designed for the public at large, was also issued.
The public had been concerned about three main alleged dangers—polio, enteric fever, and food poisoning. About polio, the committee's conclusion, on page 20, was that as far as it could ascertain
bathing history is irrelevant in the causation of poliomyelitis".
On enteric fever, that is, typhoid or paratyphoid, of which there are some hundreds of cases each year in England and Wales, the committee was able to detect each year on average, I quote from page 21:
Less than one case with a history pointing to a possible sea bathing infection.
There is no attribution even of this one case per annum to sea bathing, merely a suspicion that less than one case on average per annum might be so caused. I will come back to food poisoning later.
The committee's overall conclusion, on page 23, was that
with the possible exception of a few aesthetically revolting beaches the risk to health of bathing in sewage contaminated water can, for all practical purposes, be ignored.
There are three qualifications in that conclusion and I shall deal with them one by one.
It may be asked why the committee provisionally excludes aesthetically revolting beaches from the clean bill of health given to the rest. I will try to explain this. If there happens to be a person in the area who has enteric fever or food poisoning, and if faecal matter from that person happens to be carried, intact and undispersed, on to the beach, there arises the possibility of chance contact which the committee says, in the case of this infected matter alone, is the minimal risk that its researches showed might conceivably have caused on average each year not more than one case of enteric fever. But for such circumstances to be found, the beach and the water would have to be so heavily and obviously fouled, so aesthetically revolting, as to be repellant. To repeat the report's conclusion,
The risk to health of bathing in sewage contaminated waters can for all practical purposes be ignored.
Why did it mention "sewage contaminated water"? That is the second point that I should like to meet. This is because the sewage is put into the sea through an outfall and, therefore, into an area where bathing might occur,


although if the outfall is properly sited a long way out and after proper scientific skill in location the sewage is dispersed and disintegrated and any infection there might be in it is diluted to harmlessness by the sea. When the outfall is well sited none of it comes near the beach.
I now turn to what might be called the qualifications of this conclusion. What does the phrase "for all practical purposes" mean? Here, I return to food poisoning. The phrase refers to the theoretical risk, the entirely theoretical risk, that a bather might swallow sufficient water from an area in which sewage had been discharged to come to some harm. But—I refer to page 19—a bather would have to swallow many gallons of such water before there could be the least suspicion of a risk.
I would now leave the health aspect but for the publicity that has been given to a very short passage during the British Medical Association's Conference last month. I understand that the opponents of sewage outfalls—I quote from The Times report—
did not dispute the facts of the report, but deprecated the air of complacency which its conclusions had engendered.
From the platform however. The Times reported, it was pointed out that 18 of the 21 sub-committee members were doctors and that it was quite clear that there was no medical or public health aspect to all this
The hon. Member for Fulham made a little play of the fact that the committee took six years to report. Anyone who reads the committee's report will I think understand that a lot of its research was dependent on analysing individual case histories. The statistical apparatus for doing this, the bathing seasons in which it could be done, the comparisons over a period of time which could alone validate conclusions, justify the length of time that was taken. I think that the Committee will agree that when a committee including 18 doctors has been studying the subject for six years and has reached unanimous conclusions, we cannot possibly disregard or wave away what it said.
I now turn to what the committee calls the aesthetic aspect, and what the hon. Member for Fulham wishes to call decency. Everyone knows that there are

beaches which are in a disgusting state. But everyone knows that this is not the general picture. Most beaches are clean because most local authorities carry out sewerage responsibilities efficiently, and because it would be absolute madness for towns that depend on attracting holidaymakers to keep their beaches and their water other than clean.
All coastal authorities, just as all local authorities, are responsible for efficient sewage disposal. Those few where there is something which should be done must be well aware of the need. They must know better than anyone else from their own observations—they must know from complaints—and they must have been alerted, if they needed alerting, by the report and by public interest. There is certainly no complacency centrally.
My right hon. Friend sent out a circular as soon as the M.R.C. report was published. In it he said, among other things:
The report makes it clear that there are beaches which are grossly polluted and where, even though the risk to health is remote, active steps should be taken to remedy the pollution. The Minister looks to your council to study the report and to consider what action, if any, is needed in their area. The appropriate action will, of course, vary with local circumstances, but the Minister believes that a great deal of pollution which occurs at present is attributable to outfalls constructed many years ago, some of which discharge sewage too close to the shore or have become overloaded in the course of time.
If this is the case, if the problem is entirely one of the outfall, the outfall should be extended or if necessary enlarged. In some cases it might not be necessary to do this and an improvement could be effected in some other way —for example, disintegration, or comminution which, broadly, means pulping; tidal storage tanks allowing discharge only at suitable states of tide to allow sewage to be carried away, or settlement of the sewage prior to discharge, which would necessitate separate sludge disposal arrangements later.
The hon. Member for Fulham rather scoffed at the idea of the Medical Research Council that pulping—that is, comminution or disintegration—might be desirable. He thought that these things must be desirable in any circumstances. The hon. Member has missed the whole point of the Memorandum and of engineering opinion in this field.


The whole point is that if the outfall is properly located there is no problem whatever. The sea does the job. No sewage is brought inland on to the bathing beaches whatever. That depends, however, upon proper location of the outfall. Only if that is not, or cannot be, done because of a freak of nature in the area is it necessary to consider these other alternatives.
At this stage, it would be only fair to refer to cost. The cost of any scheme must depend upon local circumstances and needs. Generally, comminuters and disintegraters—that is, the pulping alternatives—are the least expensive, with tidal storage tanks next. Partial treatment by way of settlement or of lengthening the outfall would both tend to be more expensive.
It is often said, although the hon. Member for Fulham was careful not to give it his support, that resorts need help from the taxpayer towards their sewerage costs, because, it is said, and rightly so, that they have to provide for more population concentrated in a short holiday period than live permanently in their areas. Surely, catering for this extra seasonal population is their industry.
The hon. Member for Fulham appealed for special loans to be available. Loans are available and the terms on which they are raised are, in broad principle, up to the local authority concerned, subject to the approval of my right hon. Friend. In addition, most coastal resorts have already provided perfectly adequate sewage disposal arrangements at their own expense. Why should it necessarily be beyond the purse of those few who still need to act? If there are cases where expensive work has to be done by a local authority, the taxpayer is already available to help through the rate deficiency grant.
I must repeat that all this remains a local authority task. There is no health risk against which the Minister must protect the public. The risk is quite different. It is the purely local one that if those few local authorities whose beaches are seriously polluted do not act, and act effectively, they may well cease to attract holidaymakers.
I should like to warn the House that spot judgments about beaches cannot, except in the rare, bad extreme, produce reliable information. So many variables

must be taken into account—for example, tide, season, weather and time. The Committee is quite strong on this at page 18 of the Memorandum. The only people who really know the true conditions are the local authorities themselves. It is up to them to see that their shop windows are not soiled.
What the Minster can do, and will do, is to advise local authorities who approach him, as he always has done. There is, however, another situation in which my right hon. Friend can help. Sometimes, resorts are so closely involved, because of tides or geography, with each other that their problems might best be assessed and solved jointly. Here, the Minister is willing to call a meeting and act as co-ordinator.
I should like now to try to summarise in conclusion. Nearly all coastal authorities discharge sewage to the sea. Disposal to the sea, provided that it is efficient, need not cause pollution and is a satisfactory method of treatment. Most coastal authorities do not have pollution of their bathing water or beaches. There are some with a degree of pollution on their beaches and a few, no doubt, with grossly polluted beaches. These can be offensive, and often disgustingly offensive. It is for the local authority concerned, which knows local conditions and which will have been alerted, by public interest, by the Memorandum and by my right hon. Friend's circular, to take action. This action must be to seek expert advice.
The hon. Member for Fulham spoke as if the knowledge of how properly to locate an outfall is not necessarily available. I should like to reassure him. The knowledge is available and it is up to local authorities who are worried by the problem to seek that advice, which might well lead to work on the outfall or varying degrees of lengthening or treatment. There is no case for help from the taxpayer beyond the help that is available from rate deficiency grants for those who need it.
At the end of his speech, the hon. Member for Fulham outlined an apparently attractive programme of what he thought should be done. First, he said that standards, either scientific or less precise, should be laid down. I draw the attention of all who are interested in the subject to page 18 of the Memorandum, where the Committee


concluded that it would be impracticable to lay down a bacteriological standard. It fully argues the reasons why. The situation may, of course, change. The Committee is constantly saying that, perhaps, next year, or in ten years' time, there may be more knowledge. We are working at it, but at the moment a bacteriological criterion and standard is not practicable.
The hon. Member then suggested that there should be a stimulus. I should have thought that the stimulus of their future industry should be enough for all resorts at least to examine the condition of their beaches and their water. The knowledge is available to advise them where to place their outfalls. Power to obtain loans is available. Grant for those who cannot afford it is available through the rate deficiency grant system. All that is needed is the willpower.
The few local authorities concerned must get their beaches clean for their own sakes as resorts. My right hon. Friend the Minister is available to advise and, when joint action seems sensible, to co-ordinate. On the whole, our coastal resorts have clean beaches and clean bathing water, but my right hon. Friend hopes that this surge of interest will lead the few laggards to clean themselves up.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I had not intended to take part in the debate, but I feel compelled to do so because of the grave inadequacy of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech. He has given us, in his usual admirable style, a great deal of technical information conveniently prepared and well expressed, but he has done nothing whatever to allay the profound sense of shame and disgust that is felt at the state into which so many of our beaches have been allowed to fall.
It is not good enough for the Minister, who admits that we have a number of disgusting beaches, to say that the matter is purely one for the local authorities concerned. It is a national matter, and the existence of so many beaches in such a disgusting condition is a strong reflection on the Government. It is because we feel so strongly that we have called for this Vote to be debated today so that we can condemn the complacency of the Government in this respect.
It is elementary to point cut that anything which affects the health of a sizeable proportion of the community must affect the health of the whole community. Therefore, this is not a matter which can be complacently left to local authorities. This pollution of so many beaches has now reached such a stage and has produced such a sense of national indignation that the Government must do something far more effective about it than was indicated in the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary.
I am glad that we are having this debate, because it is time that the House of Commons reflected for a while not only on the pollution of coastal beaches, but on the whole question of sewage disposal throughout the country. The truth of the matter is that we have lagged a long way behind the proper requirements of sewage disposal generally. That is because sewage disposal, during the last few years, has come to be regarded as the Cinderella of social activities. Obviously, it does not attract as much interest as education, medicine or housing, but the life and health of any community fundamentally depend, first upon the water supply, and, secondly, upon sound, effective sewage disposal arrangements.
During the last generation or so, there have been so many new urban developments, such a growth of population in certain areas, so many new towns have been built, such an extension of travel as a result of the increased numbers of motor cars, as well as increased facilities for people to have holidays who have never had them before, and a vast extension of the caravan habit, that new problems of sewage disposal have been created which have no been adequately dealt with. Problems of sewage disposal and methods of treatment for sewage have not kept pace with other social developments, and that is what we are suffering from today and what we are complaining about. I notice, for example, that so far in the debate we have concentrated upon the pollution of many of our beaches but it is not only the pollution of the beaches——

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. H. Hynd): I must call the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that the Estimates


that we are considering are for services in connection with beach pollution by sewage.

Mr. Fletcher: I was not intending to do more than pinpoint the fact that our complaint about the pollution of beaches by sewage disposal is only one aspect of the whole problem of sewage disposal. I was going to mention rivers, because we have the same problem in the estuaries of many of our rivers. It is not only the coastal beaches that are being contaminated as a result of deficient sewage disposal arrangements, but also the river and the river estuaries.
Let us examine what the Parliamentary Secretary said and consider how inadequate it was as a response to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart). The Parliamentary Secretary dealt first with the health aspect. He really tried to assure us that there was no harm at all suffered on any of these beaches by people who swam and bathed in these coastal waters. I agree that the sea is an admirable dissolvent of sewage, provided that the outfalls are taken far enough out and, as the hon. Gentleman said, provided that they are properly sited. The trouble is that so many of them are not properly sited. They may have been properly sited in some places when they were built fifty or more years ago to meet the requirements of those days, but the tragedy is that as our seaside resorts have expanded so the requirements of sewage disposal have expanded and there has been no adequate overhaul by the local authorities of those requirements.
I differ from the Parliamentary Secretary in what he said about the health aspect. It may be that sturdy and regular bathers or swimmers suffer no ill effects if they swim in a certain amount of contaminated water. I do that myself, and I am conscious of certain slight risks which I ignore, because I swim in Highgate Ponds every morning. These are polluted sometimes because people go and drown themselves there and there is other contaminated matter. People who swim regularly may not be affected, but I am convinced that if visitors to seaside resorts, and particularly children who are not accustomed to swim regularly or if they are, swim

in chlorinated water, must run serious risks to health if they bathe or swim in the sea at some of these resorts, which the Parliamentary Secretary admits are in a disgusting state. I would hesitate to swim there.
It is not necessary to quote statistics. The Parliamentary Secretary and the Committee have ignored the psychological effect. Experience shows that if there are these disgusting conditions on the beaches the effect is that people do not want to bathe there as much as they otherwise would want to do. People are so disgusted and nauseated by the conditions that they deny themselves the ordinary pleasure that the seaside visitors to coastal resorts expect to enjoy, namely, being able to bathe, swim, paddle and amuse themselves on the beaches in comfort and with pleasure. They deny themselves or, if they do not, they run a certain amount of risk. The Parliamentary Secretary cannot brush off the health aspect of this matter as complacently as he tried to do. I attach more importance to the fact that the public are now becoming so increasingly conscious of this danger to their health that it is inevitably having a psychological effect and, as a consequence, an effect on their health.
As to the outbreaks of polio that occur from time to time, it is all very well for the Parliamentary Secretary to say that some selected doctors say that they cannot prove that there is any statistical evidence of a connection between such an outbreak and sea bathing. Experience shows that wherever there is such an outbreak or epidemic, whether in London, in a provincial town or on the coast, nearly every family doctor who advises people on what precautions they should take in order to avoid catching the epidemic disease will say to the family, "Until the epidemic is passed I would not go swimming; I would not go near a bathing pool or the sea. I would avoid the water." If that is true of the general advice that is given, surely the argument must be stronger in the case of those bathing places on the coast or elsewhere which are subject to a large degree of contamination. That is not in dispute.
While nobody wants to exaggerate the dangers that arise to health from these nauseating conditions on a certain number of our beaches, it is not, as the


Minister suggests, a problem that can be ignored. While I think that the health aspect is the most important, there is also the aesthetic aspect. Some of these beaches in their present condition are an offence to human decency. They are an offence to one's sight and to one's sense of smell. They produce conditions which are revolting even if one is an inhabitant of the locality. They must be even more revolting to those who go to these places for their summer holidays.

Mr. Jack Jones: They go there in full health and come back possibly with impaired health.

Mr. Fletcher: I ask the Committee to remember that during the last twenty years or so we have deliberately developed as part of our national policy a system of providing facilities so that everybody can have a holiday with pay. These conditions did not exist before the war. Since the war there has grown up this desirable system whereby far more families than ever before go away to the seaside for a week or a fortnight. It was hoped and intended that this would not merely give them relaxation and the benefit of change and better health but a great deal of pleasure as well. All that is being eroded and undermined by the conditions which so many of these thousands of visitors find when they get to a certain number of places. I will not mention any names or particularise. I leave that to those who want to do it, but a great many people know where these conditions exist. The Parliamentary Secretary knows, and he has admitted that there is a large number.

Sir K. Joseph: I did not admit that there was a large number. I said "a few".

Mr. Fletcher: We will not argue about precise numbers. This, of course, is a matter of degree, and obviously some are worse and more revolting than others. Some coastal resorts are free from blame and criticism, but the visitors from London, Birmingham and the Midlands do not know which beaches are all right and which are not until they get there. We are complaining on behalf of those who suffer from these conditions when they find them.
The Minister says that in the case of local authorities which have been so remiss and negligent, that is purely a local authority concern—it is their fault, and if they do not do the job they are the only people who will suffer because they will cease to attract visitors. That is a complete fallacy. They are not the only people who will suffer. The other people who will suffer are the visitors who go to these resorts from London, Birmingham and elsewhere and do not know what the state of the beaches is until they get there.
If ill-health results from these conditions it will not only be the people who go to those areas who will suffer, because one cannot confine an epidemic within the area of one locality. Health is a matter which affects the whole nation. It knows no geographical or local authority boundaries. Therefore, it is a matter of national concern, and, therefore, it is not good enough for the Minister to say that this is a purely local authority matter and must be dealt with by the local authority concerned.

Sir K. Joseph: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman remembers that I prefaced my remarks by saying that it was a purely local authority matter on the basis of the findings of this Committee that there is no health risk involved. That is why it is a purely local authority matter.

Mr. Fletcher: As I think I said, a great many other experts do not agree with the findings of that Committee. It is not a matter in which expert knowledge bas the last word, because we cannot entirely dissociate the health aspect of the matter from the amenity aspect of it.
If people go to what are called "health" resorts for the benefit of their health and even if we cannot produce statistical evidence to prove that they are contaminated by inadequate sewage disposal arrangements, nevertheless, if they are confronted day by day with these disgusting spectacles, that surely must have an adverse effect on their health. It robs them of a clean, happy health-giving holiday which they are entitled to expect.
It seems to me that the Minister is talking complete rubbish on the subject. I am convinced that far more is required of the Government than the Minister realises. What has now become a national scandal must be dealt with by the


Government on a national basis, and if there are some local authorities which are remiss in this respect, as the Parliamentary Secretary has admitted, then effective steps must be taken by the Government 10 correct their negligence and mistakes.
My hon. Friend has made a number of suggestions. It may well be that some of these local authorities have failed to do the work properly because they have not wanted to spend the capital. That, in turn, is due to the policy of putting up interest rates to local authorities which the present Government have consistently followed.
I could give the Committee, although I will not do so, the names of various local authorities which have been advised by their technical advisers that new and up-to-date sewage disposal plants or new outfalls for sewers are required and where the cost was so great that those plants, needed on health, aesthetic and national grounds, have been turned down on financial grounds.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): Turned down by the local authority.

Mr. Fletcher: Naturally — turned down for lack of finance, and very often through lack of finance after consultation with the central Government. It is no use the Minister pretending that this is——

Mr. Brooke: Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me for interrupting him again? For the last two years or more no sound scheme for the treatment or disposal of sewage has been turned down by my Department on financial grounds or delayed on financial grounds. What, therefore, the hon. Gentleman must be saying is that the elected members of the local council have decided not to go ahead with the schemes.

Mr. Fletcher: No, I am not saying anything of the sort. The most significant part of the Minister's intervention were his first few words—"for the last two years". I am not talking merely about the last two years but about the last ten years and more. I quite agree that there has been some improvement

in the last two years, but there are 10, 20 or 30 years' leeway of neglect to make up.
I forget how long the right hon. Gentleman has been Minister of Housing and Local Government, and I am not sure whether he was pretending to speak for the whole of his tenure of office or only for the latter part of it, but I will agree with him that in the latter part there has been some improvement. However, the matter has to be looked at over the whole period.

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman has sought to impute to the Government that they have been standing in the way of these coastal local authorities improving their sewage disposal arrangements. That is not true.

Mr. Fletcher: It is obviously difficult for me to argue the matter over the Floor of the Committee. I have not come prepared in great detail and I can only generalise, as the Minister can do, but what I can assert is that, as the Minister knows, a large number of sewage disposal schemes throughout the country have been submitted to him by various local authorities, some from coastal areas and some from other areas. A few of those schemes have been carried out, but the great majority of them have not. They are all equally desirable. It may be that there are limitations and a lack of technical expertise in dealing with them, but the truth of the matter is that in this country there are now pending a large number of technically approved disposal schemes, in both coastal areas and elsewhere, which are recognised as desirable. Some of them—I think a great many of them—have been held up on financial grounds.
I am anxious to ensure as a result of this debate that none of these schemes is further delayed on financial grounds and that the Minister will take the initiative and see that the local authorities concerned, particularly those few coastal authorities to which he particularly referred, where conditions are particularly disgusting, are given by some means or other, whether by a special loan or some special arrangement, the necessary assistance so that they shall have no possible excuse for perpetuating a state of affairs about which we are complaining today.
I will not pursue the matter further. I am quite sure that public feeling is now so aroused about the matter that it is determined that the Government shall do something about it.

5.19 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: Members of the Committee may know that I, although a doctor, have specialised in a very different sphere of medical endeavour, but I would say, in extenuation of my views, that I spent many of the war years looking after the health of large numbers of sailors and airmen in the tropics and, therefore, had to do a good deal of fairly intense public health work.
I certainly welcome this debate today because I have, as may be known, some very deep misgivings on the subject of sewage disposal. I have the greatest respect for my right hon. Friend the Minister and for my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. I know that they are conscientious men. However, in this matter I am bound to say that I cannot conceal that I believe that they are badly advised.
I cannot accept the advice given by my hon. Friend, because I believe that the advice which the Government have been offered by this highly-qualified committee commits a basic scientific error by standing pat on a negative, by asserting, as it does in many cases in the report, that it has not set out to prove, or has not even carried out tests on, certain things and that, therefore, those things cannot be proved to happen. That is fatal and dangerous advice, and that is where I believe my right hon. Friend is being led astray, although I am happy to notice that his sympathies leak through nevertheless.
After all, when dealing with public health one has had, as a major branch of public health, to study the water-borne diseases. These are the diseases to which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary referred, such as poliomyelitis, the enteric group and many others.
I might, perhaps—as I have done in the past—refer to poliomyelitis as an example. This is a disease which, long since I first qualified in medicine, has been established as being transmitted

through the intestines. Work which has been done on this shows certain facts which I think are valid scientific facts accepted throughout the world of bacteriology, virology and what have you. For instance, two workers in America called Paul and Trask published in 1942 a paper in the American Journal of Public Health in which they said:
From the epidemiological standpoint and from the public health standpoint the intestinal tract seems a dangerous place for this virus to be…From the sewage studies it appears that the virus may still be detected when considerable dilution has taken place, and we find that it may be transported by sewage for at least an eighth of a mile and perhaps for several miles.
The material on which they base these findings was work on the sewage outfalls in the Harlem River or East River in Manhattan at a time when there was a certain amount of polio. The cases were mostly in Harlem. The nearest case was about an eighth of a mile away, but the majority were three miles away. That is a positive solid—or liquid—scientific finding.
Another worker—Rhodes, I think; I am not sure—managed to isolate active polio virus from the sewer outfalls at Toronto before an epidemic occurred. It is well known that patients who are sufferers from polio carry the virus in their intestines during the latent period before they have any open symptoms, and excrete it, and may do so for many weeks. They may approximate to the "carrier" in medical circles. Such a person may have the disease in him but may never contract it as a clinical entity.
Another paper of vast importance to our deliberations today is one by Rhodes and his co-workers. I have not got it with me; I lent it to another hon. Member who has not returned it. They proved in a laboratory experiment in Canada in the early 'fifties that polio virus placed in experimental circumstances in water in a laboratory was recovered alive from that water no less than 188 days later. These are facts. We may certainly tamper with them in the course of an argument, but I am just putting these matters before the Committee as facts.
Against this, we have the report which has recently been presented to my right hon. Friend. Over and over again the members of the Committee plead that


things are not proven. More than once —once to my ready recollection—they say they could not experiment adequately with the coli group bacilli but chose to carry out their experiments on the salmonella group instead as an analogous thing. They say they have every reason to have confidence. They do not set out to establish my confidence in that assertion.
There are many instances which I should like to bring to the notice of this Committee where the members of that committee frankly confess that they have made no tests at all. For instance, they claim that the sea disinfects. So it does. But they say this on page 18 of the report:
A detailed study of such biological aspects of sea-water bacteriology in relation to sewage disposal has not been made in the present series of investigations.
These words come under the heading
The fate of sewage organisms in seawater.
In my humble opinion, they give the whole argument away by saying that.
On page 22 the report also says the following on another subject which we may mention again later—comminution:
The committee has not yet been able to make a careful study of the effect of comminution or of other modifications in sewage disposal on the bacterial quality of seawater…
Surely they have sold the pass twice in the most blatant manner, and the report ceases almost to have any value as a scientific document, although it testifies to six years' hard work.
Even if we allow that sea-water and sunlight will help to kill, say, the polio virus ten times faster than the water in a laboratory experiment—possibly in the dark—we still must assume that the virus lives for over eighteen days in sea water. How can we accept these rather dull, cloudy asseverations not based on experiments against the facts which have been proved by a few workers elsewhere?
Personally, I would not think that anybody could decently pretend to bathe in such a mixture as we have heard described when there is, for instance, any polio or any other enteric disease about. Admittedly, if there is no enteric disease in the population no enteric disease may be found in the sea water, but it is not till after the latent period that the cases may be discovered and meanwhile the

propagation of the infection has been going on.
I cannot accept this complacency. It is grossly unscientific. In the specialty to which I have become more accustomed it is referred to as catathymic thinking —which means that when one wants to believe something it must be true.
Out of their mouths the members of the committee have condemned themselves. On page 21 of the report they make a very curious observation at which I invite this Committee to look:
Although these observations strongly suggest a connection between the bathing beach and paratyphoid fever, nevertheless, in view of what has been said about the numbers of paratyphoid bacilli present in sea-water and the minimal dose of these organisms required to cause the disease, the committee think it far more likely that the four patients just referred to were infected by direct contact with undisintegrated faecal matter rather than by swallowing contaminated sea-water.
What are we quibbling about? They bump into the stuff and eat it instead of drinking it. Is not this a fantastic document?
I have discussed this report with one of the perpetrators in public surroundings. I was astonished in the course of the discussion to find that he based some of his defences of his views on the fact that the coli bacilli and other things could not penetrate the skin. I felt bound to ask him whether he expected everybody to swim with their mouths shut. But other remarks were made later on which show that he is not thinking of people swimming with their mouths shut.
I now refer to what I think is the basic fallacy which I place before hon. Members for their consideration. I do not wish to take any part in this controversy other than in respect of what is backed by reasonable assumptions and reasonable investigation. But here we have the public health authority of the country which lays down, on the one hand, that a drinking water supply which has more than one coliform bacillus in 100 c.c. of water is condemned outright, and yet the same chaps are saying, apparently at Torquay, "You can drink gallons of it with floating solids in it without the slightest risk." Then why do they test our drinking water supplies at all? That is all I want to know. It seems to me that they are trying to put across two utterly different cases. In short, I think that the report is just solemn poppycock.
After all, I suppose that if there had been public health doctors in the old days or in the Middle Ages, when chaps used to empty things out of the upper windows into the street, these doctors would have reported that there was no danger to the passer-by, unless the chap up top let go of the pot. It seems to me that this is a most confused, contradictory and even deceitful report, because on page 23 there is a reference to this little matter of comminution, which I mentioned earlier. Comminution is turning the stuff into soup. It says:
Clearly, comminution may be desirable in situations where gross visible contamination of bathing beaches is occurring.
I think the word "visible" is the operative word there. In other words, if one can see it, it is time to do something about it and turn it into soup, so that the chaps cannot see it. I think it is a deceitful and misleading report, and I also think that it is utterly unscientific.
On the strength of these observations, I want to ask my right hon. Friend to show willing about getting something done, and not to stand pat on this very pseudo-scientific negativism, because if he should do so, he will be defying the common sense of the whole country. I ask him, first, to show willing, and I give him three ways in which he can do so. One is to encourage the building of sewage disposal plants whenever it is in his power to do so. I still do not know whether he encouraged Fareham, though I know that it decided against the plans after interviewing his Department.
Secondly, I want him to encourage the building of what I believe are efficient, useful and financially rewarding plants in which a certain amount of compost is made possible in conjunction with town refuse. A month ago, I had the privilege of nipping over to Switzerland in between Divisions and seeing there a plant near Basle, which was a most efficient composting arrangement. It even composted bottles. It composted everything except tins, and the people are selling the product and there is a ready market for it. Surely, if such undoubtedly rich nitrogenous material as we are talking about can be mixed with town refuse, we might be able to get a rewarding product which could be sold and which could be of value to horticulturists and farmers.
The other thing which I ask my right hon. Friend to support—and I am afraid that the Parliamentary Secretary did not appear to support it—is the principle of this so-called "golden list" which an organisation based in my constituency has published. It is no use jeering at this list because only 155 out of 260 local authorities replied. I venture to submit to the Committee that it is quite possible that the other 105 did not want to talk about what was going on. That is the first conclusion which one might reach, because they are not likely to be the local authorities which have the most pride in their performance.
I ask my right hon. Friend to take a hint from public opinion and not to take a stand on bad advice. He should not place himself in a position from which no retreat may later be possible, nor should he be pushed into expressing unconcern with what is certainly concerning people up and down the country, because, otherwise, we shall get into the situation which was described to me last week in my constituency in which "going for a bathe round our coasts is no longer a question of swimming, but simply of going through the motions."

5.34 p.m.

Mr. Percy Wells: I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary is feeling considerably less complacent after the speech which we have just heard from the hon. Member for Gosport and Fare-ham (Dr. Bennett) than he was when he made his own speech this afternoon. I hope that I shall not be called to order if I take the debate a little further inland than did my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart). It is not only from outfalls that our beaches are contaminated, because if sewage is discharged into rivers and streams they finally go into the sea and thus are also responsible for part of that contamination.
One of my local newspapers last weekend commented upon a speech in a Committee Room upstairs by the Minister to a group of Members of Parliament representing seaside resorts. I was one of that group. In a leading article the newspaper expressed considerable annoyance with the Parliamentary Secretary. I wish to quote what it said:
He tells M.P.s representing health resorts that the Government accepts the evidence


of the General Medical Council's Report that the risk of bathing in sewage-contaminated water can be ignored. But the campaign is too well founded to be killed by this bland Ministerial reply.
That will be said of his speech this afternoon. I will wait with interest to see what happens.
Reference was then made to a disclosure of the fact that no less than 10 million gallons of sewage pours into the Medway each day, most of it untreated or partly treated. Another paper, on its front page, carried the following headings:
Sheppey Regatta Walk-out. Mass of Sewage in Sea at Queenborough".
The report went on:
Regatta day, Queenborough's biggest event of the year, was marred by allegations of water pollution. Swimmers from Rochester made a dramatic last-minute withdrawal from competitive races…after their club chairman had claimed that the water was unfit to swim in. He said 'The water is polluted with oil and what appears to me a mass of sewage. Rather than risk the health of our members, I have decided to withdraw our teams.
In fairness, I should state that the harbour master said that the mass to which he referred was not sewage, though he admitted that there was much oil in the water.
The scandal of the pollution of our rivers and beaches has been going on for a very long time. I believe, however, that the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Harrogate (Mr. Ramsden) has awakened public opinion in regard lo this matter. In my own case, for instance, I knew that Milton Creek which flows into the Swale near Sittingbourne is contaminated with an evil-smelling effluent which we had often been assured by successive medical officers of health was a harmless industrial discharge. It came rather as a shock to me, therefore, when as a result of the introduction of the hon. Member's Bill I had my attention called to the following paragraph in the Kent River Board's annual report for the year ending 31st March, 1959. I quote:
Sittingbourne Sewerage Works. During the past two years the quality of the final effluent from this works, which discharges to Milton Creek, has become increasingly unsatisfactory. Only about a quarter of the peak daily flow is passed through the aeration plant, the remainder being discharged to the Creek after settlement only.

Referring to the industrial effluent, the Report states:
—effluent which, from a chemical standpoint, is more than three times as strong as untreated domestic sewage, is still being discharged to the head of Milton Creek at a rate of some three million gallons a day, From Kemsley Mill, effluent which is only some 20 per cent. less polluted is discharged at a like rate to the Creek at its junction with the Swale.
I am pleased to say that the firm concerned with the trade effluent has planned to spend something like £100,000 to mitigate the discharge of this effluent.
This is bad enough, but in a letter to me, the clerk to the Kent Rivers Board, in connection with the Bill to which I have referred, says this about the River Medway:
From Aylesford to Wouldham the Medway is septic and stinking in a normal summer, and Milton Creek is the same. This is not only to be sensed by the eye and nose, but has been established by systematic pollution surveys undertaken by the Board over the last two years…Reference should be made to sewage from the town of Queenborough. It is discharged without treatment from an out-fall on one side of Queenborough Creek, and at low tide it lies on the mud banks, where it is an offence to the eye if not to health. Masters of vessels have complained to the Port of London Authority of crude sewage being washed on to the decks of their vessels when in that vicinity.
One wonders why these conditions have been allowed to arise. I think that the answer is that the extent has not been generally realised, and I suppose also because the cost of putting these things right must have entered into consideration of the matter when some medical officers have been making their reports. Certainly, that is the case in regard to Milton Creek.
Time after time we have been told that the smell was quite harmless. I quite agree that the smell may be harmless, but it is certainly not true of the contamination. What we want to know now is what the Government intend to do about something which is becoming a very serious scandal.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. R. W. Elliott: In conjunction with the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. P. Wells), I suggest that the outfalls from coastal urban districts may be wrongly sited and that there may, therefore, be a backwash to the beaches. But the possible contamination of beaches by


outfalls is mild compared with their possible contamination by rivers such as the Tyne.
The Tyne is a classic example of a fine river into which nauseous drains flow. Tragic indeed is the state of the river, tragic in its danger to health, and in the enormous cost not so much of preventing future pollution, but of making good the neglect of past years.
We have 20 miles of this river flowing through an urban area to the sea. At Tynemouth and north and south of the estuary are some very fine beaches. To them, from the industrial urban areas of the North Country go thousands of people every fine Sunday in summer.
It is very encouraging to hear from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that the danger to bathers is very slight—according to the Medical Research Council's Memorandum. However, I believe that there is a very grave psychological problem here and that we need to assure the people of Tyneside, and other areas where people go to the beaches at weekends, that the danger is non-existent, or, if we cannot do that that this problem of polluted rivers and the question of how best to deal with sewage is being resolutely faced.
It is very easy now to be wise and say that the annual expenditure of £19 million since the war has been inadequate. We know about priorities and we also know about the very great need for the fullest research and a correct decision about the disposal of sewage. Some slight consideration has been given to compost. I have taken a certain amount of interest in that subject and have studied results which have been obtained. Expensive as the necessary processing plant is, there is a strong case for some consideration in that direction.
We fear the effects of sewage on health over the entire 20 mile stretch of the Tyne as well as on our coastal beaches, and we have been locally facing the problem. We cast our domestic refuse into our rivers in exactly the way that domestic refuse was cast into the streets of Paris from upstairs windows before the French Revolution. Fifteen Tyneside local authorities have combined together and very soon now a sub-committee will report on the nature and quantity of sewage in our river and on the possibilities of dealing with it.
Public opinion in the North Country on this matter has been roused, very largely, I believe by an excellent newspaper campaign conducted by the Newcastle Journal. In the country as a whole, there have been 54 reports and there are 16 relevant Acts. I suggest that the moment is now at hand for a computation of our knowledge.
If assistance through rate deficiency payments is inadequate, there might well be an extension to urban stretches of river of the extra assistance given in rural stretches. It has been a great disadvantage that each local authority on rivers such as the Tyne is responsible for that stretch of river which flows between its boundaries, without, until now, sufficient co-operation.
Finally, aids to speedier assistance seem to be greatly needed. If Government loans are necessary to aid local authorities, following reports such as that about to be produced on Tyneside, easier loan conditions and longer periods of repayment may well be desirable and, possibly, essential. We may have to give even greater priority to giving increased powers to the Ministry of Health for the provision of sewerage works.

5.46 p.m.

Mr. Jack Jones: I had hoped that we should have had longer time for this so that a large number of hon. Members could have aired their views and we would not have been confined to debating the question of pollution of beaches. As the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott) rightly said, these matters cannot be fully discussed without discussing how the material gets to the beaches.
From time to time in the House of Commons I have represented the point of view of those decent, quiet folk, the anglers of Great Britain. As a father and grandfather of ten beautiful grandchildren, I occasionally like to go to the North Wales coast. I would like to be sure that the children could play in the sands and bathe, or paddle in the sea in safety.
When I have a complaint, I criticise the Ministers whom I think responsible, but in this case I do not blame the Minister for the position, for I think that he does not want to do other than


what is wholly right. I am considering this matter as an ordinary mortal wanting to eradicate a vast nuisance which is becoming a public nuisance. Everyone knows that on the beaches where effluent is found one can see not only the remains of human excreta, but other things which are obnoxious, which should not be seen by the young, and which are disgusting and disgraceful things to find on beaches. This problem, therefore, affects morality.
Here we have the Government saying that we have never had it so good, that there is full employment, that we have better wages, that we can eat more food and that we can have cars to go to the seaside. We have seaside corporations advertising the attractions of their towns, we have brochures and advertisements all over the place telling us to come to so-and-so; more people go and the result is that there is even more human excretia to be dealt with than there was before. That is a fantastic, ridiculous, silly situation which has to be dealt with.
I sometimes fish in the sea and I know that where there are seabirds there are fish. Seabirds can be seen in their thousands around sea areas into which the effluent is discharged—one has only to sail around the perimeters of such areas to see what happens. I do not intend to mention any names, because that would be unfair and would adversely affect the municipality concerned, but it is possible to see sea birds in their thousands collecting and feeding on what a few hours previously was human excreta—effluent not only from private homes, but from hospitals, from chronic cases in hospitals, from patients suffering from T.B. and cancer.
I am not a medical man, but I was very intrigued by the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett)—any in this matter we are all hon. Friends, because this is not a party matter but a matter of the decency of Great Britain affecting us all. I think that he will confirm that in the sort of areas which we have in mind one can see effluent floating in the sea, effluent which can be diagnosed as having come from hospitals in the area from patients suffering from such complaints as T.B., cancer and poliomyelitis.
I am not concerned with the argument that if it stays in the sea long enough it can be decontaminated or made decent. The question is: does it stay there long enough? It does not. One can see on these beaches material which has been inside human bodies within the previous 24 or 36 or 48 hours. It is a fantastic situation.
The Minister may say that it does not smell. Let me take him to places not far from where I live—I live not far from Liverpool—but I shall not name them, for "no names, no pack drill". I can take him to places where the smell is bad enough. I can take him to the Manchester Ship Canal, when there have been three days of sunshine. It stinks rotten. I have lived on the banks of that canal for thirty years, but have recently moved into the country and was glad to be able to do so. But there are thousands of workers in industry who have to get up at 5 a.m. to go to their mines and workshops and, on the way, feel as sick as dogs and cannot enjoy their food.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Mr. McCann) lives within a few yards of the place of which I am speaking. One cannot even catch rats there any more, for they have deserted the place. At one place on the canal there is a notice of a charge made in the 1800s for taking a duck across. No self-respecting duck would swim across now. Indeed, ducks get too far away from it now to fly across.
This is a serious matter, and we have not exercised our minds about it sufficiently. I am an ardent amateur gardener and I pay £2 a ton for muck. Yet go to Germany, Switzerland, Belgium or Austria and one finds that they do not allow to go to waste millions of tons of material than can be processed back into the ground from whence it came. Here we have one of the finest natural manures in the world.
I am not an engineer, but I am not a fool, either. Why can it not be brought in from the sea, processed and put back into the land. The hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) knows that he could do with a few thousand tons of it at a cheap price. Go to Belgium, as far inland as one can get, and see what happens to human excreta. If one hires a house in Belgium one gets the bill reduced for "mist". I do not know what


that word means in Belgium, but that is what one gets and it mystifies me. But we do not do what foreigners do. No wonder they get two and three crops a year. No wonder they get from an acre more produce than we get. There is something in this. These Belgians and Dutchmen are not as "dutch" as some people think. They do not throw all this waste product away; they process it.

Commander J. S. Kerans: The Chinese have been doing it for years and years.

Mr. Jones: The Chinese are good farmers. Confucius said that if one wanted to be happy for a month one should smoke a pipe; if one wanted to be happy for a year one should marry a wife. But if one wanted to be happy for life one should get a load of muck and cultivate one's garden.
The Chinese have more people to feed with less at their disposal to do it with and they put their waste to use. China has done it. The Germans have done it. They use this to feed the fish, the fish feed the ducks, the ducks feed the people, and so it goes round again. The Committee may find all this humorous, but it is true. We do not do that. We feed the sea and the sea gives it back. Then we wonder where disease comes from.
There should also be more research into what this pollution does. Recently, a few hundred yards from this House, in the lake in the nearest park, tens of thousands of fish died through lack of oxygen because of a form of pollution caused by something that decayed and absorbed the oxygen.
We are entitled to be humorous about this, but it is nevertheless, a deadly serious matter—and I use the word "deadly" literally. It is no use scientists trying to "kid" the man in the street that millions of tons of excreta put out to sea and drifted by wind and tide back to the coast is a good thing for Britain. We are not fools. Even if it has been decontaminated and disinfected it is obnoxious. The atmosphere is smelly. I have made a small contribution as a father and as a grandfather of ten children. I hope that they produce ten each, but they will not be going to the seaside and saying, "Daddy, I wasted my money. The place stinks".

5.58 p.m.

Mr. Walter H. Loveys: I almost entirely disagree with most speakers this evening. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones) has given us one of the most enjoyable speeches that I have listened to during my period in the House of Commons. But I consider that we do a great disservice to the millions who enjoy our beaches and to the seaside resorts who depend on the holiday trade, if we fail to keep a sense of proportion and cause any completely unnecessary alarm.
The main difficulty in this problem is, as the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) said, to define accurately the degree of sewage contamination that is a danger. It would be so easy if we could only define the exact degree, because we could then lay down a standard below which no local authority would be allowed to fall. It has been tried in the United States, but unsuccessfully. I gather that the different States have laid down different standards.
We have heard all sorts of ideas in this Committee, but the report of the sub-committee set up by the Medical Research Council deserves more serious consideration than it has had here today. It was interesting and enjoyable to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) disdainfully criticising members of his own profession, but we should give this report very serious consideration. Its findings are stated clearly in the preface:
The result of the investigations are reassuring. They should go a long way towards relieving anxiety about any presumed danger of contracting infectious diseases such as enteric fever and poliomyelitis from sea bathing.
On pages 4 and 5 of the same report there is mention of a very remote possibility of minor gastro-intestinal illnesses, but they are nothing more than "tummy" upsets, which we can regard as occupational hazards. We are just as likely to get them from picking up a bit of dust when going through the doors of this Chamber.
When we talk blithely about the treatment of sewage, the first thing we must realise is that what is considered today as the complete treatment does not produce a pathogen-free, sterile effluent. Furthermore, even if human contact is


made with completely untreated sewage the danger to health is present only if it has originated from an infected person.

Dr. Bennett: My hon. Friend has put a very interesting point, which I have heard quoted by most town clerks and local authority people in order to resist the intentions of those who think as I do. It is true that a sewerage farm cannot be established which will trap and destroy all the bacteria, but there is a very simple addition which can be relied upon to do it. It is the very thing we use for our drinking supplies, namely, a filter bed of sand.

Mr. Loveys: I am not going into technical details. I am quoting not from any town clerk's report, but from the report of the Medical Research Council. My hon. Friend continues to disagree with, it and I must allow him to have his views on this matter.
Only if a person comes into contact with untreated sewage and then eats a sandwich without washing his hands is there a real danger of picking up infection. What we should be discussing today is the question of what reasonable steps we can take in the question of personal hygiene, not only on the beaches but in our everyday life. I know a lady who will not go on to a beach, but who, every afternoon, sits in her garden eating lovely clean sandwiches and snuggling up to and kissing her pekinese dog. The dog kisses her back, but only a few moments before it has been down at the bottom of the garden having a lovely time in the manure heap. That sort of thing is just as dangerous as bathing in the sea; indeed, it is more dangerous.

Mr. John McCann: This may be a first-class argument, but on one occasion when I took my two children to the sea, on the last night of our holiday we were absolutely surrounded by human excreta. How does the hon. Member apply his argument to the physical aspect of the matter?

Mr. Loveys: The hon. Member should come to Bognor Regis.
I have said these few words, against the general feeling of the Committee, in defence of the majority of our beaches. I admit that there may be a few cases, such as hon. Members have mentioned, where local authorities

should lengthen their pipes further out to sea. That is the sensible answer. But I would not say that it was necessary to insist that all local authorities should go to the enormous expense of reversing the flow of sewage back inland, and building compost plants.
The hon. Member for Rotherham, who grows tomatoes so successfully, may know that compost of this type is useful for certain types of horticultural plants, but not for general agricultural use. An eminent authority has told me that it is considered that to eat tomatoes raised from this type of compost is probably far more dangerous than bathing from our beaches.

Mr. Jack Jones: It is also good for brassica. If we can get more sprouts on the stalk the housewives will get the benefit, because the prices will come down. Why should they not have that benefit?

Mr. Loveys: I will not answer that question just now, as many more hon. Members wish to join in the debate, but I would point out that in Bognor Regis the council is taking float tests all the year round, in varying tides and wind directions. If those tests show that there is the slightest necessity for it the outfalls will be extended. That is the sensible approach to the problem, and I hope that the Committee will not be carried away by any scaremongering talk, based on no proof at all, when there is no real danger from sewage pollution on the overwhelming majority of our beaches.

6.5 p.m.

Mr. J. B. Symonds: I am pleased to take part in this discussion, because I have, in more senses than one, a personal and very active interest in the matter. I agree that the pollution of our beaches has reached an alarming state, so much so that the major health resorts are being placed in a difficulty because of complaints from visitors and residents which cannot be ignored. If they are ignored there is an outcry. Some authorities have taken notice of this and have made their beaches very pleasant, but others are not in that fortunate position.
I agree with the Minister that some local authorities are remiss in the carrying out of schemes to prevent pollution of their beaches, but others which are desirous of carrying out such schemes are


not able to do so. Some authorities have shelved their plans because of the cost. Others have unsuccessfully submitted schemes to the Minister. A rural district council in my division was anxious to prevent further pollution of its beaches and wanted to enlarge is existing sewers. It wanted to carry the outfall further out to sea.
Its scheme has been submitted to the Minister and has been approved by his inspectors as being essential in the interests of the community. Many more houses are being built in the area and new factories are using many more gallons of water per day, which the sewers are having to take. The existing sewers are really not sufficiently large to take this amount of water. The Minister has said that grants are available, including the rate deficiency grant. If so, why was the Ennerdale Rural District Council application turned down? It wished to enlarge its sewer and extend it further out to sea.

Mr. McCann: The Minister has said that during the last two years no sound sewage scheme has been turned down by his Department.

Mr. Symonds: I was coming to that point. A scheme has been submitted and the Minister's inspectors agree that in any case the work has to be done. But the Minister has turned it down, saying he is not satisfied that a case has been made out, and no grant is provided. I wish to know why the Minister says that no satisfactory scheme has been submitted to him when the scheme submitted was turned down. I have given sufficient evidence to show that a scheme has been submitted——

Sir K. Joseph: If the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Symonds) is raising a specific case, which he has already discussed with me on several occasions, think it only fair that I should reply to his argument. There is a grant available to help new installations for rural sewerage services, but the Minister has to be satisfied that it is a new service and not the normal renewal of an existing service which might by that renewal be enabled to take more sewage. On that argument the hon. Gentleman and I have disagreed because there is no question of a general grant in this case.

Mr. Symonds: The Ministry inspectors agree that the work is vitally necessary because the sewage is polluting the beaches in the area of the Ennerdale Rural District Council. The Minister says that he is not satisfied that it would have to be renewed, yet he has told the House that no reasonable scheme has been submitted to him.

Mr. Jack Jones: The Parliamentary Secretary is saying that the scheme would be satisfactory if it were a completely new scheme. What the authority must do is to scrap the old scheme, however much value it may still have, and go ahead with a new scheme which will cost much more. The authority can have a new scheme, but it cannot improve the old one.

Mr. Symonds: The Parliamentary Secretary and I have argued this out for a long time and he agrees that I am right——

Sir K. Joseph: indicated dissent.

Mr. Symonds: —and that the Ennerdale Rural District Council is right. He says that we require a larger scheme and he is nodding his head in agreement. He also agrees that the beaches are being polluted.

Mr. Jack Jones: But you cannot have the "brass".

Mr. Symonds: I have submitted evidence from the residents in the area indicating that the beaches are polluted. The fact that another 180,000 gallons of fluid will go down the existing sewers and that 600 new houses are being built in the area makes it vitally necessary to have an enlarged scheme as otherwise the beaches will be polluted to a greater extent. If the Minister has an interest in trying to prevent the pollution of our beaches, if regard is paid to the valuable work done by medical officers of health and the recommendations which they make, and if, where necessary, sewer pipes can be extended further out to sea, the Ministry will be doing a good job of work. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider his decision in relation to the Ennerdale Rural District Council.

6.14 p.m.

Mr. Percy Browne: I am glad that an opportunity has been


afforded for an hon. Member representing a West Country constituency to speak during this debate. I appreciate what has been said by hon. Members opposite and by some of my hon. Friends about the state of our beaches, but I think that they are "going it a bit too brown."
I hope that hon. Members—some of whom do not represent coastal resorts—who have been criticising the state of our beaches will realise that overemphasis on this problem will do a great disservice to our holiday resorts. I think that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary was right and that it behoves holiday resorts to put their own house in order if they wish to attract the holidaymakers. We do not want any punitive action from the Government to force local authorities to do so. I believe that before long no holiday resort will be able to distribute brochures about the attractions of its neighbourhood unless it can also state that no untreated sewage goes into the sea near its beaches.
I wish to say a word—I had hoped to say a great deal more—on the subject of estuaries. I ask hon. Gentlemen to realise, when they suggest that local authorities should take action straight away, that in estuaries, where there may be steep hills and buildings coming down to the edge of the water, it would be very expensive to alter the flow of the sewage as has been suggested. There is a beach at our estuary and I have children who bathe from it, and I am as interested in this subject as any hon. Member.
During the debate on the clean rivers and estuaries legislation last November I suggested that it would be well to give the river boards power to force local authorities in the areas of estuaries to make alterations in their sewage outlets where necessary, but that the local authorities must be given a period of years in which to carry out the work. I suggested a period of seven years because that period is mentioned in the 1951 Act. I believe that that could be done, but only if there is better representation of local authorities on the river boards.
Over-emphasis of this problem will, as I say, do a great disservice to our holiday resorts and I suggest that everyone in the country should he made aware of the conditions of the beaches on the

Continent. From what I have seen of the sewerage arrangements on the Continent—the gurgling noises, the "footprints" and the condition of the plumbing—I cannot think that the treatment of sewage on the Continent is particularly good. I am certain that local authorities genuinely desire to provide better methods of sewage disposal, if only because it is in their own interests.
I ask hon. Members not to overemphasise the problem and to give local authorities time to deal with it. This debate and what we have read recently in the newspapers and what has been said by the British Medical Association will encourage them to take more immediate action. I hope that the Government will institute annual checks to ensure that local authorities are given a yardstick by which they can judge whether their beaches are polluted.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: I shall occupy the time of the Committee for only two or three minutes. The hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. P. Browne) seemed to imply that hon. Members on this side have been larding it on a little too much in their descriptions of the beaches as they are found in various parts of the country.

Mr. P. Browne: indicated dissent.

Mr. Mallalieu: The hon. Member shakes his head. I am glad to find that that is not the case. I thought that he had suggested that it was wrong to lard it on because that would do a disservice to the various municipalities which have beaches in their territories and would lose custom for them from visitors. I do not think that anyone on either side of the Committee would want to do any disservice which was not thoroughly deserved by the municipalities concerned, but the fact is that there is grave disturbance in people's minds about what is going on.
I want to stress a particular aspect. In my constituency there are very considerable farming interests. It is ludicrous for this country to pour this stuff out to sea when it is such valuable material which ought to be kept for use on the land. It is not as if ways and means for dealing with sewage were unknown. They are perfectly well known. There has been the experience in this


country, in Johannesburg, and in Jersey. Jersey has shown beyond all doubt that there are ways of treating sewage which can not only get rid of danger from sewage, but which are means that any civilised country ought to adopt. Edinburgh has been selling this stuff at £2 a ton. It is material which is needed in agriculture and we cannot afford to lose it. When, at the same time as we make a sickening mess of our beaches, we could be acting in this way and wasting such valuable material, it seems that we are just plain stupid.
I have been a little upset by the official attitude. I hesitate to use the word "complacency." I should like to hear from the Minister a speech which will persuade the Committee that it is not £ s. d. which will prevent the right thing being done about sewage. If the Government can give that assurance they can calm a great many of our fears. We are looking for that statement from the right hon. Gentleman in a reply which, we hope, will show that he is not discouraging local authorities from doing the right thing. The right thing, surely, is to use sewage in such a way that it increases our wealth instead of squandering it by putting it in the sea where, at the same time, it can do damage to our beaches and to health.
If that is not done, I warn the right hon. Gentleman that I shall be "on his tail" whenever I can be. I do not expect that he will mind that, but I shall be constantly harrying him, for he will be part of the conspiracy against the agricultural community of the country. The conspiracy is that the agricultural community has to buy fertilisers from a highly protected industry while this stuff, which might help them to produce the food we need, is thrown away. I suggest that that is plain folly and ought never to be done. So, please, when the Minister replies will he give us to understand for good and all that we are not to be regarded as pariahs when we go to his Ministry and ask that something radical should be done about sewage?
Not recently, it is true, but for quite a number of years I have had to spend far too much time in persuading the Ministry to allow expenditure to be undertaken by local authorities in the way of adequate provision for sewage disposal: and that

was so until fairly recently. Now, when we "have never had it so good", is the time when we should do something civilised about this matter. It is not just a question of the Ministry not doing something. It may not be actively discouraging local authorities to do this work; can we persuade it to encourage them to see to the disposal of sewage in a proper manner? If we can be persuaded of that by an assurance, the right hon. Gentleman will not have me "on his tail".

6.25 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: In the five minutes which remain open to me, I want first to contradict the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) and then to run to the sludge which they deserve the arguments of the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher). When I have finished with that, I want to make two or three practical and scientific comments on the highly delightful speech which, as always, we have had from the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones).
First, we all want the same thing. In the all-party Tourists and Resorts Committee of which I am a member, I have considered in detail and have given a great deal of thought to this question. I see no sign of criticism which could be levelled against this Government or their predecessors in regard to past treatment of the resorts in this matter. What blame there is, as I shall prove, lies entirely at the door of a few local authorities and with no one else. It is grossly unjust to make a general attack in this matter on anything in regard to past treatment.
I have one or two suggestions to make for the future. The first is to see that these local authorities of which I have spoken get on with the job. That they can do, but the inspection requires no statutory powers. Where a local authority is small and cannot afford to do this job we should look to see whether it is a case of the "big brother" next door discharging muck into the land of the smaller brother and not paying his fair share for doing so. I am not prepared to accept the idea that we should not mention the names of local authorities in this matter. In the Isle


of Thanet there are Margate, Ramsgate, Birchington and Westgate. In Birchington none of this material goes into the sea.
In Margate the situation is first-class and there is not even a single complaint about Margate beaches. Its sewage goes through a rotary screen of a most modern type, the screenings being washed off the screen by hot water jets and discharged in the outfall on the upstream side. The holes in the screen are five-sixteenths of an inch diameter. The sewage is discharged to the outfall, which is 600 yards long, and goes out to Foulness Point where it is discharged in a north-easterly direction into the North Sea on a falling tide.
There have been no complaints about sewage on these beaches. I can produce a similar description in regard to Broad-stairs and Ramsgate. I turn to the difficulties of Peacehaven which are said to be due to the practice followed by Brighton. There are serious difficulties there and I quote from a letter of 8th March, 1960, from Peacehaven Parish Council which says that, following an earlier public inquiry by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, 99 per cent. of the sewage at Portobello was from Brighton, 11 million gallons being brought from Brighton against 180,000 gallons from the cesspit catchings from Telscombe and Peacehaven. The whole of this sewage is poured out 1,400 ft. from the cliff.
The local parish council says that it is not even sewage from its district but that which comes from its big brother next door. That is a case in which the Government ought to be the arbitrator. If the "big brother", as in the case of Brighton and other authorities, is not willing to pay its proper share, the Government should see that work is carried out satisfactorily, as is done in my constituency. If they need to take statutory powers to do so, let the Government take them.
May I deal with the health aspect? We all know that unless there is disease in the excreta which are sent into the sea, people will not get a disease from this sewage. In cases where there is already sewerage plant the problem does not arise, and where there is no sewerage plant it will not arise if the outfalls are properly sited.
Last December the Government sent a circular to all local authorities. Most of the local authorities which were then not in a satisfactory position are carrying out the requisite work under it. The Government have never refused a scheme anywhere in the country. There is no evidence as yet that there is a lack of finance, except in the case of Peacehaven, where there has been a battle between two local authorities.
Only two things are necessary to ensure the achievement of the objective which we all desire. The first is that inspectors from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government should go round the local authorities and make certain that the work is done. Secondly, although I doubt whether a grant will ever be necessary, if it is the requisite powers could be taken later.
We want to see clean, good water in the sea and clean beaches. We want to see that because our tourist industry is of great importance. It is not true to say that we are far behind other countries in sewage disposal. I have not time to show that in detail, but I could easily do so, for I have the proof in these documents. In many parts of the country we are as up to date as they are.
I have conducted an examination of all the great beaches of this country, along the length of the East, South and West Coasts. Speaking in measured language, I say that if we rule out a few small cases and a few small artificial beaches, our beaches, broadly, are cleaner, better, sandier, or rockier as the case may be, and the sea is cleaner, than in most other countries of the world.

6.33 p.m.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: The debate has illustrated the profound concern which the Committee feels about this problem. Hon. Members have referred to its two main aspects—first, the effect of the discharge of crude sewage upon our coastal amenities and, secondly, its effect upon health. What has also emerged from the debate is the Government's apparent inaction.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that the main problem is that of the location of the outfall. He said, in so many words, "Locate the outfall properly and the tide will do the rest". But what of all the existing outfalls which are totally


unsatisfactory and what of the unsatisfactory outfalls which are still being constructed by local authorities?
In this context the hon. Gentleman said that this is purely a local authority matter. There was no indication in his speech that the Government would do anything positive about it. That is not good enough. The hon. Member said that the power to obtain loans exists. He knows as well as others that local authorities are being discouraged from taking action in this, as in other matters, because of the high interest rates which they have to pay upon loans.
For six years the Government awaited the Memorandum of the Medical Research Council. When it appeared the Minister said that its conclusions were "reassuring". He then sent a circular to local authorities telling them that something should be done in cases of bad contamination—and that is all that the Government have done. The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), who is not now in his place, said that he was satisfied with the Government's work. Apart from sending out that circular letter, I cannot see that the Government have done anything, except by raising Bank Rate from 5 per cent. to 6 per cent., to make it difficult for local authorities to do anything.
The two main questions which need an answer this evening are these: is the Memorandum of the Medical Research Council reassuring, as the Government claim? Secondly, what more should be done to improve the position? On the amenity side, everyone will agree that our coastline must be preserved and enhanced. It is not only the maritime local authorities which have a responsibility in this matter. We all have a trusteeship. As hon. Members have said, every year more and more people are using the beaches, and every year, too, the volume of coastal sewage increases. It is repugnant to say the least, that so many of the lovely beaches are spoiled by crude sewage and that bathers have to come in contact with it.
The Parliamentary Secretary referred to oil pollution. There has been a considerable improvement in that respect since the Act was passed, and severe penalties are imposed on those who break the law, but sewage pollution is

not only much more unpleasant but more dangerous. I have been on beaches and sat on oil, and it is extremely unpleasant, but I much prefer to sit on oil than on crude sewage. I think that even more urgent action should be taken to deal with it, although I accept that the problem of dealing with crude sewage is far more difficult and complicated. I know of one town in Wales where crude sewage flows across the beach, and I know of many more where it is regularly brought back by the tide.
I know that we are not dealing with rivers and that, therefore, I cannot talk about them, but I want to pay a tribute to the river boards, which take a particularly enlightened view in this matter and have done extremely good work since their institution. Recently, they have been given a certain amount of authority in estuarial waters, but that had to be done by a Private Member's Bill. The boards have had an enormous task and have done well.
But their problem has been made almost insuperable. I will give an example. A local authority submitted a scheme to a river board for discharging untreated or partially treated sewage into non-tidal waters, and the board rejected the scheme because it thought that it was damaging to amenity and would be a danger to health. The authority extended the scheme by 100 yards, thus taking it outside the board's jurisdiction into tidal waters. That sort of conflict between public authorities is undesirable, and it emphasises the need for a national policy. We boast a good deal about our amenities; we have our National Parks, our town and planning legislation and our green belt, but we continue with this primitive practice of discharging crude sewage into our coastal waters, and the Government approve it.
A more serious aspect of the problem is that of its possible effects upon health. I ask again: Is the report of the Medical Research Council reassuring? Are we entitled to say, "This is a nasty thing, but it is not injurious to health and, therefore, local authorities can take their time about it, and we need not worry about it"? Can we say that it does not matter whether the Bank Rate goes up, and there is a few years' delay in getting better schemes, because it is not damaging to health? I have read


the report as carefully as I can, although I am not an expert, as is the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett). I arrived at the same conclusions as the hon. Member. I thought that he made a most knowledgeable and forceful speech, which must have impressed everyone. I hope that the Minister will pay heed to it.
We must respect the work of the members of the committee who produced the report. But anyone reading it objectively must come to the conclusion that it is a negative document. Its arguments are based upon average pollution. Is there such a thing as "average pollution"? I do not think that there is. In many cases, there is gross pollution. My hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) referred in his lucid speech to the problem in New Brighton. He produced graphic photographs of the position there. Where there is gross pollution there must be danger to health. The report also refers to the inquiry of the Enteric Reference Bureau. I was much impressed by the quotation which the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham made from it.
The report does not deal either with gastric and upper respiratory infections. One hon. Member mentioned that and said that such intestinal gastric illnesses were not really very serious and did not matter.

Mr. Loveys: I said that they were slight "tummy" upsets.

Mr. C. Hughes: I do not think that the hon. Member produced evidence to persuade the Committee that that was so. These things can lead to more serious conditions. My experience is that many general practitioners, during the bathing season, say that many children who bathe have constant throat infections. Surely that should be looked into.
At best, what can be said is that there is an acute conflict of scientific and medical evidence. I also read about the experiments in Canada, to which the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham referred. I have the paper to which he referred, although it was not passed to me directly. I read it with great care. It is rather frightening. It is small wonder that the members of the British Medical Association at their conference a fortnight ago said that they were flabbergasted with the complacency of the

committee. I am certain that they will also be flabbergasted at the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary in this debate.
Many local authorities have excellent records, and tribute should be paid to them. Poole and Llandudno, have praiseworthy records. There are many other local authorities which deserve the highest praise. The Committee must face the point that inland authorities have to spend money on sewage treatment. They are bound to do so. All coastal authorities should follow suit. Where it is clear that they are unable to afford it, the Ministry should assist them. Where there is a potential danger to health, where the evidence is inconclusive, as it is in this case, it is the Government's duty not to wait for an epidemic, but to take all possible steps now to minimise the danger.
We realise that this cannot be done overnight. It is the sort of problem which calls for an overall national policy and long-term planning. That is what is lacking. We have heard one stonewalling speech from the Parliamentary Secretary. I hope that we shall not hear another from the Minister. As far back as 1898 a report was produced which said that sewage should be clarified before it is discharged. Sixty-two years later we are debating this problem. How much progress have we made in that period? We may as well face the fact that we have made very little progress indeed. We say that the Government's indifference in the face of this national problem is reprehensible, and that is why we propose to divide the Committee tonight.

6.45 p.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): Various hon. Members during the course of the debate have said that this is a subject which could and should be debated on non-party lines. However, the Opposition do not intend to do that. They wish to turn it into a motion of censure on the Government. I must therefore, unwillingly, defend the Government against these party shafts, because to my mind there should be no difference of party policy on this.
In my judgment, all Governments have taken this problem seriously, though unquestionably we have many


years of neglect to overtake. We are making good progress, but it cannot all be put right by the waving of a wand; nor, if we still have many years work in front of us, should any one Government of the day be charged with having failed to solve what is essentially a long-term problem.
Three years ago when I first became the Minister I said that I should like to get myself known as the "Minister of Clean Rivers". I am grateful to the river boards for the support which they have given, and are giving, me in that aim. I should dearly like to be known as the "Minister for Clean Beaches". I am glad to say that the state of our beaches is improving. A number of beaches—it is not a great number— are repellant, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said. That is the only word for them. We may argue till the cows come home about the precise element of health risk there is in them, but nobody in his senses, nobody with any feeling for the decencies, would wish to bathe there. They must be tackled, and until a few minutes ago both sides of the Committee accepted that the prime responsibility rests with the local authorities.
In the Public Health Act, 1936, Parliament placed responsibility for effectively dealing with the contents of their sewers squarely on local authorities. That responsibility has always been accepted by local government and very large sums have been spent on sewerage, sewage treatment and sewage disposal, by both inland and coastal authorities.
I do not believe in the idea of now offering subsidies to local authorities which have been tardy in discharging duties which others have discharged willingly, efficiently and without subsidy. I was glad that the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) did not make the point, which has been made in some quarters of the Press, that this is a question which depends upon Government subsidies. Those whose financial resources are limited will receive rate deficiency grant.
The point at issue between the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Symonds) and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary was not whether a scheme is being held up by my Department. It

is not being held up at all. It is purely and simply a question whether the scheme comes within the provisions of the Rural Water and Sewerage Acts to qualify for the grant which is available for new sewerage schemes in rural areas. It is nothing whatever to do with the question whether the scheme should be carried out. My Department is perfectly ready for the scheme to go ahead.
There is no evidence of authorities being financially unable to do their duty of cleaning up their beaches. If work needs to be done which has not been done, it has been because a few coastal local authorities have not been willing to find the money, and I trust that the debate will help. I welcome the debate. I want the influence of Parliamentary debate to come into play on those local authorities which are laggards, because ultimately local government must be operated through public opinion.
I detected in some Opposition speeches the suggestion that local authorities were bodies which simply dangled at the end of a string from Whitehall and did not act unless Whitehall motivated them. That is a totally untrue picture of local government. Generally, we could not keep our system of local democracy working unless there was strong public opinion which, when a local authority was failing in its duty, showed its opinion at the next local election.
It is not true to say that the situation on our beaches is worsening, and I hope that that message will go out from this House. I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) for refuting the dangerous allegation that all the beaches round our costs were disgusting, and that nothing was being done about it. That is totally untrue. Nobody need be afraid to come to this country and to bathe off our coasts, but I quite agree that there are certain places where, as I say, bathing conditions are repellent. There are a few such cases, and those should be rectified as soon as possible.
The river boards are now reporting year after year an improvement in the condition of the rivers. A number of coastal authorities that have old-fashioned sewage disposal arrangements are tackling their job. Mention has been made in this debate of certain local authorities which have schemes now


projected or in process of being carried out. Though we are debating beaches today, I should be very happy if, on another day, the Committee decided to debate the condition of our rivers. We are debarred by the terms of the Motion from going far in that direction but, frankly, as the responsible Minister I regard the many miles of grossly-polluted rivers as an even higher priority for me than the relatively few badly-polluted beaches. It is the beaches that attract the attention of the Press, but in the rivers there is far less water to dilute the effluent going into them than is available when the effluent goes into the sea.
It has been suggested that virtually nothing is being done about this. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott) mentioned a sum of £19 million. I should tell the Committee that the total amount of expenditure authorised by successive Governments on sewage disposal and sewage treatment work since the end of the war amounts to about £300 million. That has not all gone to the coastal authorities, of course—I speak of the whole—but one cannot draw a dividing line, and think of the pollution of the beaches as being entirely separate from the pollution of rivers or estuaries.
As I say, £300 million has been authorised so far, and hundreds of millions of pounds more certainly need to be spent. I candidly welcome the pressure of public and Parliamentary opinion in helping to get them spent, and spent in the right place first, but it cannot be done by magic. Strong, continuous pressure is required, both from the Minister concerned, from Parliament and, above all, from local public opinion itself local public opinion, or the complaints of visitors who, if they find a town complacent about the state of its beaches, speak out and tell the town that it will lose its holiday trade unless it does something.
In this connection, coastal towns have their advantages and their difficulties. The difficulty is that whereas an inland town can put a sewage treatment works anywhere around its perimeter, a coastal town can only put its sewage treatment works inland. That will necessarily mean pumping sewage uphill—because the ground rises from the sea coast to the inland area. If there are hills immediately behind the coastal resort, it may

be extremely hard to find any suitable land for a sewage treatment works. A sewage treatment works is not always a good neighbour to a residential district already built up, one cannot pump sewage and, in any case, one should not pump sewage to the tops of hills——

Mr. Jack Jones: Surely, it can be taken out to floating lagoons and then either taken further out, or brought back to be processed. The problem is not insuperable.

Mr. Brooke: These things can be done, but I was pointing out the essential difference between the problem facing the coastal town and that facing the inland town.
The advantage that the seaside town has is that the sea is there for the disposal of effluent. There will always be effluent, treated or untreated, and there is far more water in the sea to dilute effluent than there ever is in any river. Untreated sewage, poured out on the beaches, is foul. Untreated sewage, taken to the Atlantic, can obviously be discharged without harm to anyone. The question is whether one can so plan an outfall for untreated sewage that it will go out on the tide into the deep water, and will not wash back. That has to be determined by the best qualified engineers, helped by float tests and other scientific experiments.
Where beaches are now foul it is, perhaps, because of old outfalls, badly sited many years ago, or sewers that have become overcharged by growth of population, or because the sewer is fractured, or leaking. Those are the places where the work needs to be done, and it is an engineering job. What I deeply regret, I confess, are those cases—and I know of one or two—where nothing is being done and the pollution is continuing because, though the local authority has worked out a scheme, with expert advice, that will effectively do the job, the scheme is being held up year after year by local opponents who try to stop anything being done that does not involve complete treatment of the sewage.
I must speak of the Medical Research Council's report, though I do not think that this is simply a question of determining whether there is a health risk or not. If it was proved 100 per cent. that there was no health risk whatever, I


should still say that there was work to be done in clearing up these disgusting beaches——

Sir Charles Taylor: What does my right hon. Friend mean by "local opponents"?

Mr. Brooke: In certain places, local groups are holding up schemes that have been worked out with expert advice, simply and solely because the schemes do not include full treatment of the sewage. It is that local argument that, I believe, is so harmful to the improvement we all desire.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett), who is a medical man himself, described some of his fellow doctors as deceitful, and grossly unscientific. Clearly, therefore, I must be careful about coming between eminent and professional men. The report was produced by a committee set up by the Medical Research Council—a body that normally, I think, commands the respect of the House of Commons. As the Parliamentary Secretary has said, 18 of the 21 members were doctors. They worked for six years—it had to be an investigation over a prolonged period—and reached a unanimous report.
Neither I, nor the Committee, nor anybody can ignore and wipe away a responsible document like that. I certainly do not intend to be complacent about the health aspects of the report, and I shall certainly not say that there is no risk at all but, until another group of doctors has made an equally scientific investigation of the subject, I must, broadly, accept the findings of that report as against other individuals who say that it is complacent, unsatisfactory and unsystematic. I certainly have not the slightest desire to encourage complacency. I want to get idle beaches cleaned up. At the same time, I do not want to go about exaggerating either the number of beaches that need treatment or the extent of the health risk. Although there almost certainly is some health risk when conditions are bad, it would be a pity if everyone in the country started to get it on his mind that bathing in the sea around our coasts was something dangerous and liable to give him polio.
We started late. I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I continue for a minute or two beyond 7 o'clock. The

subject of composting was mentioned and it was suggested that that might be a valuable and useful method. I should like hon. Members who are interested to refer to the Report of the Committee known as the Natural Resources Technical Committee of 1954, under the chairmanship of Professor Zuckerman. It is a somewhat discouraging document on the subject of the economic possibilities of composting. Various experiments are being made in different places but, quite frankly, the product of composting sewage sludge with household refuse is not easy to dispose of.

Mr. Jack Jones: It has been done. Birmingham does it. Bolton does it, and so does Warrington.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: The Minister has suggested that we refer to a document of 1954. Would it not be better to look at the practice in 1960 and see how successful it has been?

Mr. Brooke: I have authorised certain local authorities to carry out this work. Nevertheless, it remains true that it is not easy to induce farmers to buy the ultimate product. Unless farmers will buy it, that method of getting rid of sewage sludge is really very expensive.
It has been suggested that I should make a black list by calling for returns from all local authorities which need to take action. Let us be practical about this. If the Minister is to ask local authorities whether they are on the black list, how many will say so? That is not the best way of approaching the matter.

Mr. Jack Jones: The Minister says that the farmers will not buy the compost. Then let every visitor to the seaside, as a quid pro quo, take a couple of bags of the fertiliser back with him as a present.

Mr. Brooke: Everyone has greatly enjoyed the hon. Member's contribution to the debate.
In reply to a request from me, local authorites are not likely to reply and say, "Our beach is aesthetically revolting". We shall not acquire the information in that way. I am studying the information in my possession, with the help of my engineers. I know, broadly, where the complaints come from. It is a travesty to say that the Government did nothing for six years while we were waiting for this report. We were working all the time.
We cannot obtain a proper assessment of the condition of a beach by a test inspection. It depends on the tides, on the weather and on many things. It is not something which one engineering inspector can do in a short visit. We can form a shrewd opinion from our engineering knowledge of the age, the condition and the place of outfalls, but, ultimately, we must depend upon public opinion exerting itself on the local authority of the place. It is public opinion which must stir the local authorities locally into action, and I hope that this debate will stimulate that.
By my circular, I have encouraged the authorities to act. There is no backlog, as was alleged, of sound schemes put forward by local authorities which are being held up in my Ministry. The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) was entirely at fault when he suggested that. I have no wish to make the subject of pollution a party matter, but, in view of what has been said and in view of the insinuation that the Gov-

ernment are indifferent, that their policy is hampering public services and that we stand for private affluance and public squalor—I am quoting hon. Members opposite—I intend now to give the Committee some figures. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The Opposition cannot escape from this.

For all schemes of sewerage and sewage disposal and treatment work in the last five years of the Labour Government, the total authorised was less than £10 million a year. In 1957–58, we authorised £28 million. In 1958–59, we authorised £33 million, and last year, 1959–60, the figure was £40 million. It is for that that the Opposition wish to censure us.

Mr. M. Stewart: I beg to move, That Item Class V, Vote 1, Ministry of Housing and Local Government, be reduced by £5.

Question put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 156, Noes 206.

Division No. 136.]
AYES
[7.5 p.m.


Ainsley, William
Griffiths, W. (Exchange)
Marsh, Richard


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Grimond, J.
Mayhew, Christopher


Bacon, Miss Alice
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Mendelson, J. J.


Beaney, Alan
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Millan, Bruce


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Mitchison, G. R.


Bence, Cyrll (Dunbartonshire, E.)
Hannan, William
Morris, John


Benson, Sir George
Hart, Mrs. Judith
Moyle, Arthur


Blackburn, F.
Hayman, F. H.
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)


Boardman, H.
Healey, Denis
Noel-Baker,Rt.Hn.Philip(Derby,S.)


Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)
Henderson, Rt.Hn.Arthur(Rwly Regis)
Oliver, G. H.


Boyden, James
Herbison, Miss Margaret
Oram, A. E.


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Oswald, Thomas


Brockway, A. Fenner
Hilton, A. V.
Owen, Will


Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Holman, Percy
Padley, W. E.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Parkin, B. T. (Paddington, N.)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Hunter, A. E.
Paton, John


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Pavitt, Laurence


Callaghan, James
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Peart, Frederick


Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Janner, Barnett
Pentland, Norman


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Cronin, John
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Probert, Arthur


Crossman, R. H. S.
Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech(Wakefield)
Proctor, W. T.


Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry


Davies,Rt.Hn.Clement(Montgomery)
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Randall, Harry


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Jones, J. Idwal, Wrexham)
Rankin, John


Deer, George
Kelley, Richard
Reid, William


Dempsey, James
Kenyon, Clifford
Reynolds, G. W.


Diamond, John
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Dodds, Norman
King, Dr. Horace
Silverman, Julius ([...]ston)


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John
Lawson, George
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Ede, Rt. Hon. Chuter
Ledger, Ron
Skeffington, Arthur


Edelman, Maurice
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Lipton, Marcus
Small, William


Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Evans, Albert
McCann, John
Sorensen, R. W.


Fitch, Alan
Mclnnes, James
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Fletcher, Eric
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Spriggs, Leslie


Forman, J. C.
Mackie, John
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mahon, Simon
Stonehouse, John


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Stones, William


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddersfield,E.)
Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)


Gourlay, Harry
Manuel, A. C.
Summerskill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Edith


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Mapp, Charles





Swingler, Stephen
Wainwright, Edwin
Willey, Frederick


Sylvester, George
Warbey, William
Williams, Rev. Ll. (Abertillery)


Symonds, J. B.
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Weitzman, David
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)
Wells, Percy (Faversham)
Woof, Robert


Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Wyatt, Woodrow


Thornton, Ernest
White, Mrs. Eirene
Zilliacus, K.


Tomney, Frank
Whitlock, William



Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Dr. Broughton and Mr. Redhead.




NOES


Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)
Glover, Sir Douglas
Molson, Rt. Hon. Hugh


Alport, Rt. Hon. C. J. M.
Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)
Montgomery, Fergus


Arbuthnot, John
Goodhart, Philip
Morgan, William


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Goodhew, Victor
Morrison, John


Balniel, Lord
Grant, Rt. Hon. William (Woodside)
Neave, Airey


Barlow, Sir John
Green, Alan
Noble, Michael


Barter, John
Grimston, Sir Robert
Nugent, Sir Richard


Batsford, Brian
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie


Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Osborne, Cyril (Louth)


Beamish, Col. Tufton
Hare, Rt. Hon. John
Page, John (Harrow, West)


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Page, Graham


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos &amp; Fhm)
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)


Berkeley, Humphry
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Partridge E.


Bidgood, John C.
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)


Biggs-Davison, John
Harvie Anderson, Miss
Peel, John


Bingham, R. M.
Hay, John
Percival, Ian


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Pitt. Miss Edith


Bishop, F. P.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Pott, Percivall


Bossom, Clive
Hendry, Forbes
Powell, J. Enoch


Bourne-Arton, A.
Hicks Beach, Maj. W.
Prior, J. M. L.


Box, Donald
Hiley, Joseph
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John
Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Braine, Bernard
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Ramsden, James


Brewis, John
Hirst, Geoffrey
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Hobson, John
Renton, David


Brooman-White, R.
Holland, Philip
Ridsdale, Julian


Browne, Percy (Torrington)
Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Bryan, Paul
Hornby, R, P.
Roots, William


Bullard, Denys
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Scott-Hopkins, James


Burden, F. A.
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John
Sharpies, Richard


Butler, Rt.Hn.R.A.(Saffron Walden)
Hughes-Young, Michael
Shaw, M.


Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Shepherd, William


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Iremonger, T. L.
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd &amp; Chiswick)


Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Jackson, John
Smithers, Peter


Channon, H. P. G.
James, David
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Chataway, Christopher
Jennings, J. C.
Stevens, Geoffrey


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Cole, Norman
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Stodart, J. A.


Collard, Richard
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Studholme, Sir Henry


Cooke, Robert
Joseph, Sir Keith
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Cooper, A. E.
Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)


Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Kirk, Peter
Temple, John M.


Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Kitson, Timothy
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Costain, A. P.
Leather, E. H. C.
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Craddock, Sir Beresford
Leavey, J. A.
Tlley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Leburn, Gilmour
Tliney, John (Wavertree)


Cunningham, Knox
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Turner, Colin


Curran, Charles
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Dalkeith, Earl of
Litchfield, Capt John
Tweedsmuir, Lady


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Lloyd,Rt.Hn.Geoffrey(Sut'nC'dfield)
Vane, W. M. F.


Deedes, W. F.
Longden, Gilbert
Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John


de Ferranti, Basil
Loveys, Walter H.
Vickers, Miss Joan


Duncan, Sir James
Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby
Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis


Eden, John
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Wakefield,Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Elliott, R. W.
McAdden, Stephen
Wakefield, Sir Warell (St. M'lebone)


Emery, Peter
MacArthur, Ian
Wall, Patrick


Farey-Jones, F. W.
Macleod Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Watts, James


Farr, John
McMaster, Stanley R.
Whitelaw, William


Fell, Anthony
Macmillan,Rt.Hn.Harold(Bromley)
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Finlay, Graeme
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Fisher, Nigel
Maddan, Martin
Wise, A. R.


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Maltland, Cdr. Sir John
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford &amp; Stone)
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Woodnutt, Mark


Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Marshall, Douglas
Woollam, John


Freeth, Denzil
Marten, Neil
Worsley, Marcus


Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Gammans, Lady
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)



Gardner, Edward
Mawby, Ray
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


George, J. C. (Pollok)
Mills, Stratton
Colonel J. H. Harrison and Mr. J. E. B. Hill.


Gibson-Watt, David

Original Question again proposed.

Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again—[Mr. Whitelaw]—put and agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

7.15 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan: I beg to move,
That this House congratulates the members and staff of the Colonial Development Corporation on their Report and Accounts for 1959; regrets that they are unable to expend their successful activities in ex-Colonial Territories which became independent; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to introduce the necessary legislation to remove this artificial restriction.
The Motion is in three parts. The Government accept the first part. They, with us, are ready to join in congratulating the members and staff of the Colonial Development Corporation on its Report and Accounts. I think that the members and the staff of the Corporation should be encouraged to know that the House as a whole believes that the job which they did in 1959 as well as in earlier years was an excellent job. It is a success story, judged by any principle which anyone on either side cares to enunciate. The Corporation's financial record shows that its net revenue from trading and investment has increased in the period from 1955 to 1959 from £625,000 surplus to £2,273,000 surplus.

Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas: It will be denationalised.

Mr. Callaghan: I hope not, but it is restricted.
The Government agree that this is a very successful record of activity. The balance of profit as shown by the Corporation's accounts has risen from £409,000 to £1,334,000. Here is an organisation, financed with public money, with a great deal of skill which is operated on a commercial basis and is making a great success of those operations. Clearly, all of us feel that it is doing a good job.
The Corporation is suffering from two difficulties. The first is that its activities will slow down because the capital which it requires for its operations is getting

shorter. The second difficulty, or perhaps the second half of the first difficulty, is that the losses which it incurred in its early and rather troublesome years of operation are still hanging like a millstone round its neck. Sir Nutcombe Hume, the most distinguished chairman of this organisation, said in a public speech the other day that it was born with a lot of money and no experience. I think that the taxpayer certainly has paid for its acquisition of experience during the first few years. But, because the Government persisted, the Corporation eventually became a successful enterprise, and under Lord Reith, who made a tremendous difference, and, during the last two years, under the leadership of Sir Nutcombe Hume, it has pursued a most successful path.
What are we to do with the heavy losses which are hanging around the Corporation's neck? It is under an obligation to pay interest on its borrowed capital. It is also under an obligation to repay its borrowed capital, the early part of which has been lost. In addition, it is under an obligation to break even every year. These losses were of such a character that Lord Reith and his colleagues became convinced that they could not be borne; they were insupportable.
Accordingly, in April, 1959, the Government set up a committee to investigate what should be done. That committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Sinclair, with a very distinguished accountant among its members, reported in three months. It reported on a scheme of capital reorganisation which would have put this body on a sound financial basis and would have enabled it to pursue the successful activities that it has been following for some years without this crippling load of debt hanging round its neck. It is a financial reorganisation not unknown in a great many other companies which have had an evil period. The textile industry had a great many such operations with which it had to contend in the 'thirties.
The Government received the Report in July, 1959, within three months of setting up the committee. The first question that I want to ask the Colonial Secretary is: why has he done nothing about it? The Government have had the


Report for a whole year. If the committee could consider the matter and make a report within three months, surely it is not asking too much of the Colonial Secretary, in view of all the resources at the disposal of his Department, to reach a conclusion on it in twelve months. Why has he not done so? That is the first question.
The Corporation has said that it accepts the recommendations of the committee, whether they be burdensome or would relieve them of liability. There is nothing between the Government and the Corporation which need prevent the Government from taking action. I know that the Colonial Secretary has been very busy. He was new to the job after the General Election. He had many things on his plate, But there is no reason why he should have looked at this Report. He has other Ministers in his office. The Minister of State, Lord Perth, has been very concerned with this matter, if I read a recent lecture aright. He has very considerable financial acumen. He came from the City of London. Has not he been able to make up his mind in twelve months and make a recommendation to the Colonial Secretary?
Although I am in no mood to make, and do not wish to make, a party speech, it seem to me that the Colonial Office is convicted either of sloth or indifference in this matter.
I ask the Colonial Secretary now: may we have an undertaking that the Government will introduce legislation on this matter next Session so that the Colonial Development Corporation can be relieved of this difficulty which, as long as it hangs around its neck, will make it extremely difficult for its future operation? That is the first complaint.
The second is this. By this decision of the Government, as imported into a Statute and, therefore, if one likes to say so, by decision of the House of Commons, although not by my own personal consent nor that of my hon. Friends, the Corporation is, in the words of the second part of our Motion,
…unable to expand their successful activities in ex-Colonial Territories which become independent…
We have never been told convincingly why this should be so. We have raised it on many occasions. This is, as I see it, a House of Commons matter, because

this issue has not been raised solely by the Opposition. It has been raised by hon. Members opposite and by noble lords in another place who support the Government. It has been a combined attack by the Legislature upon the Executive and, so far, the Legislature has been easily worsted every time, but only in terms of votes and not logical arguments.
The Government had to call in nearly all the members of the Government to do this. I have made a list of the members of the Government who have tried to convince the House of Commons and the House of Lords why the Corporation should not have this right. We have had the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, the Lord Chancellor, the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations, the right hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd), the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, the Minister of State, Board of Trade, the Minister of State for the Colonies, and, last but by no means least, the Colonial Secretary himself.

Mrs. Eirene White: And the Minister of Works.

Mr. Callaghan: Yes. Who would dream of putting in the Minister of Works?
All of them have been put up to tell us why the Colonial Development Corporation should not have this right. They have failed to satisfy the House. This issue has been raised on sixteen occasions in both Houses of Parliament. They have never convinced, if I may say so to the Colonial Secretary, who comes to this with a fresh mind, many of their own supporters and they have never convinced me.
I am trying to put this in a House of Commons manner and not particularly in a party manner. What is the present position? The Colonial Development Corporation is, at present, prevented from operating in Ghana and Malaya, and next year it will be prevented from operating in Sierra Leone and, when Nigeria becomes independent on 1st November, it will be prevented from operating there. To make doubly sure that the West Indies should labour under no misapprehension about the cost of independence, when the Colonial Secretary went there he made a speech in which he gave them a birthday present


by saying, "When we launch you on the world, I want you to understand that in no circumstances can the Colonial Development Corporation operate here."
This reads rather poorly when we contrast it with the fine words of the Prime Minister's communiqué which was issued after the close of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference. They noted that the economic expansion which had taken place since their last meeting had been greater in the industrial countries of the Commonwealth than in the primary producing countries. They recognised the urgent need to maintain and, where possible, to increase the flow of economic assistance to the less-developed countries. They welcomed the decision to establish an international development association. They expressed concern about the division of Europe and they agreed that consideration should be given to the possibility of co-operative action among the members of the Commonwealth to assist the economic development of those countries in Africa which have recently attained, or are approaching, independence.
I ask the House: how do the Government match up that communiqué with their present policy on the Colonial Development Corporation? What reasons have been advanced? Ministers have told us that they rely upon private enterprise. This was the view of the right hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire. He stated coldly and nakedly that Government responsibility ended with independence. It was up to these territories to build up their credit in the City of London.
The present Colonial Secretary has told us that these arrangements can be made only on a Government-to-Government basis. The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations has told us that they rely on the Commonwealth Development Finance Corporation. He told us that nearly four years ago. Any hon. Member who has followed this matter knows that the Commonwealth Development Finance Corporation has singularly failed to live up to its expectations. I am not blaming it. I state it as a fact that it has made no noticeable impact at all in the Commonwealth by its operations. The Colonial Secretary cannot deny that.
Those are basically the arguments which have been used, except that the Minister of State treated us to the argument that the Corporation was intended for dependent territories. I can only reply, so what? There are lots of things which originally were intended for something, but which have grown out of their original intention and have been adapted to something else. It is no argument for the Minister of State to say that it was originally intended for something else. The question is whether there is a need for it at present.
The Government know, as I know, that the commodity in shortest supply in the under-developed territories is skill, enthusiasm and knowledge of management. Everywhere one looks throughout the dependent territories this is what is most needed. I challenge the Colonial Secretary to produce any other organisation in the world which has the skill, enthusiasm and teams of people based throughout the world capable of carrying out operations like this. Is there one anywhere on either side of the Iron Curtain? I do not know of one. The Corporation has divided its activities into six regions, with regional controllers in each of them. It has a wonderful team. All of us who have met these young men feel that many of them are imbued with a real sense of mission and purpose and that they are carrying out an enterprise and undertaking that the whole House rejoices in, welcomes and would like to see extended.
The Colonial Secretary comes to this matter afresh. I give him the doubtful privilege of believing that he had not thought about the matter until he had the papers placed in front of him just now. But, knowing his intelligence and his approach to these problems, I cannot believe that he will be satisfied with the stuffy nonsense which has been put to the House of Commons before on this issue.
Look at the attitude towards the Common Market. For good or for ill—I am not adjudicating on it now—this country is taking certain action in relation to the Common Market which may well prejudice Ghana, Nigeria, the Cameroons, and these other territories. We are not in the Common Market. We all know what proportion of Ghana's cocoa exports goes to the Common


Market countries and how important the Common Market countries are to Ghana's exports. The export of bananas is extremely important to the economy of the Cameroons. Our actions in relation to the Common Market may well prejudice these emergent territories in their trade with the Common Market countries.
I am not asking for charity. I do not think that the House as a whole is asking for charity in this matter. What we are saying is, why cut off the nose of the Colonial Development Corporation at this time? Let the Corporation carry on. It is not excluded from the territories anywhere. The Corporation is able to go on managing those enterprises which exist in the territories. It is able to provide technical skill in respect of any new enterprise that the Government of a territory may decide to set up.
For some obscure reason, however, although the Corporation can do both those things, it is not allowed to put in any finance. The view of the Colonial Development Corporation is that it is not wholly useful merely to be able to put in skilled teams if it is not possible to have a financial stake. I ask the businessmen on the benches opposite, who know about these things, whether that sounds a reasonable argument. To me, it sounds reasonable. If one has a financial stake in something, one is much more likely to provide the skilled management that is necessary on a basis of responsibility.
Will private enterprise fill the gap? We have it on the words of Sir Nutcombe Hume that it will not. Sir Nutcombe Hume is not a pillar of the Socialist Party. He is a distinguished financier in the City of London who manages a very large trust. What is his conclusion? Speaking with his C.D.C. hat off, he said in a broadcast the other day:
…it is our job to take a risk which private capital is not nowadays prepared to take. That arises from two reasons—the projects in themselves may be more speculative than private enterprise at any time would have undertaken. But private enterprise capital…is shy…when it is a question of being deployed in remote areas",
because of the political risks. That is Sir Nutcombe Hume's view. Do the Government differ from it? If so, they are setting themselves up against some-

body with quite as much experience as any civil servant in the Treasury about these matters and whose considered view is as I have stated it.
The Government must do better than they have done before if they are to satisfy the House tonight on this issue. I want to put forward four short, swift recommendations. First, I ask the Government to take their thumbs out and reform the financial structure of the Corporation. There has been plenty of time to do it. It could be started straight away. Secondly, merge the Colonial Development Corporation and the Commonwealth Development Finance Corporation. There seems to be no reason for these two enterprises. I am repeating a view expressed by Sir Nutcombe Hume, which I accept. It seems to me to be sensible. One of these Corporations is large and experienced, the other is small and has not done anything that has made a noticeable impact.
Thirdly, change the title of the Colonial Development Corporation. I well understand that even in Colonial Territories which are still dependent, it is slightly irksome to have the title "Colonial Development". It sounds as if we still want to develop these places as our colonies. Fourthly, amend the Charter to enable the C.D.C., with its changed name, to operate wherever the investment opportunities arise and wherever the Corporation can itself undertake the work that was laid down for it in the original Statute. That seems to me to be a basis of common sense.
I cannot believe that there can be any difference in the House on this matter. I invite hon. Members opposite to consider our Motion. We are not censuring the Government—although I would like to have done so. Having congratulated the members and staff of the 'Colonial Development Corporation, our 'Motion
regrets that they are unable to expand their successful activities
and we call upon Her Majesty's Government
to introduce the necessary legislation to remove this artificial restriction.
No hon. Member opposite, if he votes for that, need fear that he is likely to bring down the Government. It is not a Motion of censure, nor is it a Motion


of confidence. After sixteen abortive efforts to convince the Government, however, it is time that the House of Commons asserted itself on an issue upon which there is considerable all-party agreement.

7.35 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod): I beg to move, to leave out from "1959" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
and looks forward to future successes by the Corporation in assisting the economic development of overseas dependent territories.
As the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) fairly said, the first part of the Opposition's Motion is common ground between us. I am delighted to add my congratulations to the members and to the staff of the Colonial Development Corporation, not simply on their Report and Accounts for 1959, but on all the work they have done. They have very distinguished membership indeed. In particular, one would like to pay tribute to Sir Nutcombe Hume far the work which he has done and to say how glad one is that he is now joined as deputy-chairman by Lord Howick, better known to us as Sir Evelyn Baring, who will bring to the Corporation an unequalled knowledge of some of these problems. My only reason for not spending more time on this aspect is that we have a very short debate. Probably quite a number of hon. Members will wish to speak and there is no point in emphasising the matters on which we are entirely at one. The first part of the Motion is acceptable to the whole House.
There are two points that concern the future of the Colonial Development Corporation, although the Opposition Motion concerns itself with the second. The first is whether the C.D.C. can operate at all with its present financial structure. It was to examine this that the Sinclair Committee was set up. The second point is the question of what should be the area over which the C.D.C. should operate.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East spent some time on the first of those questions, because, clearly, unless the first is satisfactory the second becomes almost academic. I gladly respond to the hon. Member's suggestion that before dealing with the point

enshrined in the Motion I should say something about the Sinclair Report and the Government's attitude towards it. I am prepared to plead guilty, if necessary, to taking a considerable time about this matter, but it is of great importance. I have been giving very close study to the Sinclair Report and to the future of the Colonial Development Corporation.
As the House knows, the Corporation estimates that all but £15 million of its limit of £130 million is already committed. Therefore, on the basis of those figures, within the terms of the Act the Corporation would have access to a further £15 million of Exchequer money for new commitments and also, with my agreement and the consent of the Treasury, would be able to borrow up to £20 million from other sources. I wish to make it absolutely clear that the Government value very much the work of the C.D.C. and we wish to see it go on. The question, therefore, is how finance can best be provided to enable it to be continued.
In my view there are two lines which we should follow. First, we should encourage the C.D.C. to cause its capital to revolve. With its loan projects, obviously that will happen automatically. In the field of equity-type investment, however, I believe that when the C.D.C. has brought a project to a successful state of development it should, in appropriate cases, dispose of the scheme and so make it possible to free funds to finance new development.
Secondly, we must see what we can do to enable the Corporation to do something which it has never been able to do before, and that is to borrow from private sources the £20 million which the Act authorises it to borrow with my agreement and with Treasury consent. As the hon. Member said, we set up an extremely distinguished committee of Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, Sir Archibald Forbes and Sir Harold Howitt to examine this and allied matters. Her Majesty's Government accept, with the Sinclair Committee, that there will need to be some alteration to the capital structure of the C.D.C., although it does not follow from that that in all and precise detail I would wish to follow each and every recommendation of the Sinclair Committee.
We must also study very closely the ranking of these loans. I am sure that


even when the capital structure is altered it will be necessary for Her Majesty's Government to consider on each occasion the kind of security which the C.D.C. can offer to potential private lenders. If these two lines of policy are followed, and we intend that they should be, it is my view that it will not be necessary to raise once more the limit of advances that come from the Exchequer.
There is only one other general point that I wish to make on the financial structure before I turn more closely to consideration of the Motion. It is on the kind of use to which the Corporation should put its remaining capital and any other funds which may accrue to it as its capital revolves. We know that some time ago there was a feeling in the House that the Corporation should concentrate to a large extent on direct development projects of its own and that it should be pretty strictly limited in the proportion of its funds that it devoted to what we can call finance house business. But I think that comes from a view and from a time when there were other sources from which Governments could borrow, and that it was for a different purpose that the C.D.C. had been established.
But now that it is much more difficult for colonial Governments to raise loans on the London market, I believe—and I would welcome the comments of the House on this matter—that finance house business is the field in which the Corporation can make the most valuable contribution. Frankly, it seems to me that this is a line of business, which, generally speaking, is more suitable for a Government-financed body than is the equity type business which the Corporation itself manages as well as finances.
In saying this I do not at all rule out future and further undertakings in equity business. Indeed, I wish to see them. There are projects in which the Corporation's participation can be helpful and it is appropriate that participation in whole or in part should take the form of equity share holding. But we know that it is in this type of business that a large proportion of the inevitable losses of the past have been incurred. It seems to me, therefore, that it would be wise, within the statutory limit of borrowings from the Exchequer which I have mentioned, that there should be a limit which should be invested in equity projects.
This, in broad terms, and in frank response to what the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East has said, is how our minds work in these matters. We intend to publish a White Paper as soon as we can to show this in detail. It may be that we shall have a further opportunity to discuss the more directly financial aspects of the structure of the C.D.C. Naturally, of course, we wish to start discussions on these matters at once with the Corporation.

Mr. Callaghan: If the capital is revolving, it clearly depends on how swiftly it can revolve. As I understand that a great part of the capital is tied up in projects which will fructify very slowly, does this mean that, except for another £15 million, there will be very few fresh opportunities for investment in the Commonwealth? If that is so, the right hon. Gentleman is sounding the death knell of these schemes.

Mr. Macleod: Indeed not. Apart from the £15 million uncommitted, there are the £20 million which the C.D.C. has never been able to touch. I hope that by re-examining the financial structure we shall enable the Corporation to use that. Furthermore, there are additional sums which become available as part of the capital revolves. It is my belief, which I wish to discuss in detail with the C.D.C., that that will fully meet the present and future position.

Mr. John Tilney: Some of the investments of the C.D.C. that could be sold are now in independent countries. Supposing that they were sold, would my right hon. Friend agree to the money being reinvested in that country or not?

Mr. Macleod: No, I do not think that that could be done—and that comes in the second part of the Motion before us—with the exception that money can be invested even in independent countries to carry forward projects that have been already started.
The precise proposal made by the Opposition states in effect that the present restriction on the C.D.C. in independent Commonwealth countries is artificial and should be done away with. I have a great deal of sympathy with what lies behind the Motion. I do not regard this, as one so often is apt to do, as an issue in which all virtue is on one side. I do


not regard it as an absolutely clear-cut, black and white, issue. I see considerable force in the argument of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East. The hon. Member knows me well enough to know that it is my conviction and nobody else's—and I have studied the matter carefully—when I say, however, that I believe that the arguments on the side opposite to his are the stronger.
I have come to this conclusion not because a formidable list of Ministers may have argued the case from this Despatch Box but simply as a matter of intellectual conviction from my own fairly considerable study of the matter. When a Commonwealth country becomes independant —and in this there has been a flood of instances to study recently, such as Cyprus, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Somaliland—it does not mean that we stop being, interested in it or stop helping it. Far from needs diminishing on independence they often become more pressing, but the point is that the attainment of full sovereignty means that the method and the channels of United Kingdom assistance have to be changed if independence is to have its full meaning. The question is not whether but how and in what way it is best for us to help.
When a territory has achieved independence, with or without a struggle, to what do the minds of its leaders turn next? If they are wise, their minds turn to the development of their country, and often that development is very rapid indeed. But the programme of the development and the choice of priorities must be in the hands of the leaders of the newly independent country. No other system would be tolerated. It is not conceivable that priorities could be allocated either by the Secretary of State for the Colonies or by the C.D.C., and it would not be reasonable to allow outside bodies to decide how much, if any, money was to be invested in each project. It is a question from which pocket we offer the help given and in what way, and it is to that point that I am directing my argument.

Mr. Callaghan: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has met the argument at all. No one has suggested that the C.D.C. should decide priorities. The C.D.C. has a very simple veto. If it is asked to invest in something by a local Government with which it does not agree, it just does not invest. The choice

is still with it to decide how the taxpayers' money is best to be invested.

Mr. Macleod: Yes, of course, but then there are still priorities as between one project and another, and still the accounting system which the House rightly insists upon, and I simply do not believe, with respect, that that is compatible with ordinary independence. The hon. Member was arguing a very similar point, although exactly the other way round, in the debate which we had on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference on Monday, when the hon. Gentleman, commenting on the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, said this:
The psychology of independence was such that ex-colonial territories tended to be very touchy in their relationship with us if they detected the slightest hint of patronage or the feeling that the old colonial system was hanging over."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th July, 1960; Vol. 626, c. 147.]
The hon. Member is a very adroit debater indeed, but he cannot attempt to say—and I am using his own words—that he was greatly influenced by that argument on Monday and deny from the same Dispatch Box on Thursday of the same week exactly the same argument. With great respect, that is exactly what he is doing. He said rather cheerfully that this is a matter which, in part, could be got over, as I understood his third point, by changing the name of the C.D.C. to some more general term. It could not. This rose, believe me, would not smell just as sweet if given any other name.

Mr. Callaghan: I am sorry to interrupt again, but this is the first coherent argument that we have had, and it is still not very good. What is the basic difference between the C.D.C. and the Commonwealth Development Finance Corporation as regards investments and the psychology of independence? They are both the same. Both have emerged from the same stable, in effect, and, as the chairman of the C.D.C. said to me quite recently, "I do not mind if you call it a Cats' Meat Development Corporation if that will meet people's susceptibilities."

Mr. Macleod: I think it is more than a matter of title. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman thinks that my argument is coherent; I hope that he will find it


convincing by the time that I have finished.
The Sinclair Report, in paragraphs 67 and 69, refers to the accounting procedure which there has to be inevitably, because of the expenditure of public money, and I have said that I do not believe that that would be acceptable to the independent countries.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: Surely, there is a very simple answer to that argument? Is it not a fact that the C.D.C., or whatever it is called in future, can only operate in the independent territories at the invitation of those Governments? Therefore, the whole psychological point is settled by this. If the psychology of a newly independent territory is affronted by the offer of help, it will not ask for the help.

Mr. Macleod: Indeed, that is a perfectly valid argument, but, with respect, it does not get over the main difficulty, which I shall come to in a short time, which is that, because resources are limited, if we are to do this we shall be taking it away from somewhere else, and this is the second main point of my argument upon which I wish to concentrate in a moment.
An important point which the hon. Gentleman mentioned is that the services provided by the C.D.C., the "know-how", should be available to independent territories, and I believe that it is here that the C.D.C. can and should make its contribution to the future of these territories. We do not need legislation for this because it is already provided. On the question of various sources of assistance, they are, as the House knows, set out in Command Paper 974, and the biggest single source is finance by way of Commonwealth assistance loans. There is also the Colombo Plan and the Commonwealth Development Finance Company, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and there are international sources, such as the International Bank and the United Nations agencies.
Again, if I may hark back for a moment to an echo of Monday's debate —and this directly deals with the point which the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) has just mentioned—in considering the question of a

Colombo Plan for Africa, I said that this is the heart of the matter, and I went on:
If I may sum up our attitude towards it, it would be that we are very interested in the suggestion but that we hope that it will not be just one more organisation, because there are, perhaps, enough organizations for the distribution of capital. What is wanted is more capital to distribute."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th July, 1960: Vol. 626. c. 162.]
With great respect, this is also the heart of this particular argument. Because we know perfectly well that our resources are limited, that the problems of the balance of payments have been and, so far as we can see, are going to be with us for some time, it follows that in this field—and this is a problem of Ministers and of the Government collectively as well—we must decide where our help is to go. I am sure that the House would agree that the main thrust here must be in the dependent territories. Nobody will argue against that, and I imagine that the Opposition will want to argue, as well, that our duty is to determine how these extra facilities should be given. I do not think that anybody will argue that the main thrust should not be in the dependent territories.
Indeed, in the Sinclair Report, in paragraph 7, it is stated that the territories of Malaya, Nigeria and Ghana, which are being or have been granted independence, would perhaps
—have offered more immediate scope for the Corporation's activities by reason of the stage of economic development which they had reached.
I do not doubt that. Of course, that is true, and it is even more true if we extend it to all the other independent Commonwealth countries like Australia, Canada and so on, where the opportunities for the C.D.C. would be greater still. Obviously, the more advanced economically a country is, the more likely it is that the operations of the C.D.C. can find fruitful and profitable outlets there. If the House once accepts the fact, and this, surely, one must do, that the amount of aid from whatever source it is given is limited in total, it follows that we must select priorities within our aims, and the object, surely, is to bring on the under-developed countries rather than to accelerate the rate of growth of those countries which already have fairly advanced economies. Although the territorial scope of the Corporation's


activities, as the Corporation itself points out and as the Sinclair Report also points out, is becoming and will continue to become narrower and narrower still, everybody knows that there is ample scope, and will be for many years, in the under-developed countries for the C.D.C., because the smaller and poorer territories are hungry for development, as, indeed, is the whole of the world.
Therefore, I argue, in effect, that it is right from all points of view that the help given to the independent countries should be on a Government-to-Government basis, with the additions which we have that the "know-how" is available on repayment, that schemes can be continued and that, indeed, additional money can be invested in these schemes. I believe that for many years ahead it is right that we should discharge our duty to the under-developed countries partly through this medium of the C.D.C., and, although, as I said to the hon. Member, I recognise that there is force in the case put forward by the Opposition, I believe that the way I suggest is the surest way of fulfilling our duty to the truly under-developed countries, and I do not think that we should be wise to alter the approach which has proved itself in the past.

8.0 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White: As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) reminded us, we have had many debates on this subject, and in every one which I can recall it has been a question of the back benches on both sides of the House against the Government Front Bench. I shall be very interested to know what the position will be today.
I recall only one of those debates, which demonstrated the situation very clearly. It took place on 30th November, 1956. No doubt as a result of the ganging-up of back benchers against the Government on that occasion, we had a few concessions in the subsequent legislation on Ghana. If we had not had that debate, we would not have had the slight extension allowing for continuation of projects and further investment in existing projects and the management arrangements. For what they were worth, those concessions were a result of that debate.
In that debate hon. Members on both sides of the House argued strongly that the Colonial Development Corporation was a good instrument and should be expanded and not contracted. The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Sir R. Robinson), who is hardly a revolutionary, said that he would like to see an expansion in the work of C.D.C., and the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Leather) said that the Government should make C.D.C. their main instrument of policy. In discussing the matter, we all felt that there should be something more than just a change of name. I do not entirely disagree with the Colonial Secretary when he argues that merely to change the name from Colonial to Commonwealth Development Corporation would not suffice.
However, we made some imaginative and constructive suggestions, saying that if we believed in this type of organisation, there was much to be said for asking other Commonwealth countries to join it, not to multiply entities, but to use the instrument we had, an instrument of which we had experience and which had been used with success, and to develop it with the changing nature of the Commonwealth itself. It was said that, although the contributions of other Commonwealth countries in terms of men and money might be small, that in itself would be a fruitful advance in our Commonwealth organisation. That was the line which we hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would take today. However, the right hon. Gentleman has argued on a very narrow ground and I am sorry to feel that he has failed to see that there might have been a chance of a worth-while innovation had he been a little more forward-looking.
There were two steps in his main argument. One was on the financial side, based on the Sinclair Report. Frankly, he has taken us very little further on that. We still do not know in any detail whether he accepts or rejects the Sinclair Committee's proposals for financial reorganisation. We do not know what he proposes to do with the millstone, or albatross, whatever one calls it, of the abandoned schemes' money. We do not know whether he agrees with the A and B stock divisions and the different conditions attaching to them.
Above all, we do not know his attitude towards the future position of the C.D.C. when the seven-year period of waiver of interest comes to an end. As the Sinclair Report points out so clearly, although apparently in a fairly good position at the moment, from 1966 onwards the C.D.C. will be in a position of extreme difficulty. We are still in the dark about what the Government propose to do about the Report which they have had in their hands for the last twelve months.
On this matter all we have had from the right hon. Gentleman is two assertions. One was that it should not be necessary to raise the limit of advances now empowered, and the second was that he was in favour of a large proportion of finance house business. While not objecting to a proportion of finance house business which is a direct loan to Government or public corporations, most of my hon. Friends feel that there is a limit beyond which the C.D.C. should not be involved. At one time about 40 per cent, of its resources were in that type of investment, but there should be other sources in the world from which vast schemes like the Kariba Dam could be financed. About £15 million of the C.D.C.'s money is tied up in the Kariba Dam and similar projects.
In the C.D.C. we have an instrument which is very flexible and which can be more selective, and it should not necessarily be used for that type of investment beyond a certain point necessary for its own financial balance. I would be very sorry to feel that the Government's attitude was that it should be pushed to a proportion of 50 per cent. or 75 per cent. of such investment. I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman has in mind, but he obviously looks on such investment favourably. We must not carry that too far, because to get out of the equity type of investment too much would be a serious mistake.
I am not now disputing with the right hon. Gentleman on ideological grounds that the C.D.C. should or should not hold on to something which it has initiated and managed. In most cases it is wise for the C.D.C. to go into partnership with private enterprise, or the local government, or both. That is a very happy pattern. But it is quite

clear that the object of the C.D.C. is to go into the kind of development where something more than ordinary financial considerations are at stake. In some cases, for instance, it could set a very good standard as an employer. I have in mind, for example, the work it is doing in North Borneo, where it is doing something thoroughly worth while and, incidentally, also profitable. I should be very sorry if that sort of thing were stopped and if the Government suggested that that kind of work was not to have first priority and was not regarded as an important sphere in which the C.D.C. had special advantages.
There are many matters of finance with which one would like to deal, but it might not be fruitful to do so now, beyond emphasising one other matter. As far back as 1952, the C.D.C. asked that special consideration should be given to a type of expenditure which it had found in its experience to be necessary but not commercially profitable. It asked—and the Sinclair Committee took this into consideration in its proposals—that it should have money available for two purposes.
One was for schemes in which some kind of special social provision was needed if the commercial scheme was to go on at all; in other words, where the local government was not able to provide money for housing, schools, and so on, for the workers needed on a plantation, for instance. It was thinking of the sort of case where the commercial enterprise could not go ahead at all in that place, although it was otherwise desirable, unless provision were made for social services. The Government may feel that that is not valid, but there are still territories where that consideration might be paramount.
The other object was investigation work and small experimental pilot schemes which could not be expected to be remunerative, but which were nevertheless desirable. I hope that in any financial arrangements both these needs will be taken into account.
The other great question is whether the C.D.C. should be allowed to operate in territories which have ceased to be dependent. I have mentioned already the Commonwealth aspect, which is very important. There are other considerations. What is the attitude of the members of the staff and their feeling about


their prospects? There is no doubt that when, next October, the operations of the C.D.C. are cut down by 26 per cent. in area and 52 per cent. in population, this will have a constricting psychological effect on the staff.
It is not as though the Government are particularly generous in this matter when countries become independent. Nigeria does not become independent until 1st October, but for C.D.C. purposes Nigeria is already independent in the sense that the Corporation is not permitted to undertake any fresh work. The Government put the notional date as 1st January and, after some argument, changed it to April. The same thing happened with Ghana and Malaya. The Government fixed a notional date of independence some time before the constitutional date. One may say that a few months do not matter very much, but it is the ungenerous attitude and the rigidity of this which upsets one.
The Secretary of State may say that it does not really matter so much as the C.D.C. "know-how" is still available and it can be asked to send in staff as agents or managers. But, so far, not one single request has been made, I understand, for such services. The reason is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East said, that normally investment and management go together. A country like Pakistan, for instance, which is badly in need of development, wants capital and it knows that whoever puts up the capital is likely to want some say in the management.
Therefore, this idea that the Corporation can go in in a sort of disembodied state and do management but have no financial connection with the scheme, is unreal and cannot be used by the right hon. Gentleman as a valid argument. The real argument, I believe, is that the Government do not want to have any further financial commitment, that they do not want to have any further expansion of the C.D.C.
I take the right hon. Gentleman's point of a perhaps slightly quicker revolution of funds. It is a fair point, and it is true that if the financial rearrangement is satisfactory there may be no need for any increase in allocation, because there will be better opportunities for borrowing in the market. But those of us who have a conception of real Common-

wealth development do not feel confident that we should not have an arrangement for continuing in some of these territories on a much freer basis than is available at present.
I shall not take up further time, because many other Members wish to speak. For the reasons I have given, and for others which could be adduced, many of us feel that the Government's attitude towards the C.D.C. ever since they came into office has been a negative one. They have hindered rather than helped. They have taken a narrow rather than a wide view of the possibilities of this organisation. They have consistently discouraged the skill, devotion and enthusiasm of the staff. We had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman, as a new Secretary of State, would have taken a more imaginative and more constructive approach in his speech.

8.15 p.m.

Sir John Vaughan-Morgan: This debate is to revolve round two points—the lack of decision by the Government on the Sinclair Report, and whether the Commonwealth Development Corporation should operate outside dependent territories. If the Opposition's Motion had been one of censure on the Government for their delay in dealing with the Sinclair Report, I would have been tempted to follow them into the Lobby. I shall come back to that point later.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the first part of the Motion applauds the staff of the Corporation, and as one who was at one time associated in a venture with the Corporation, I echo these words that have been said. I may add that the venture was profitable neither to the Corporation nor to myself. It was one of the millstones now hanging round the Corporation's neck. But I did at least learn to have great respect for the staff and for the organisation.
Many of us on these benches perhaps did, as the hon. Lady said, start with a slight prejudice against the Corporation, but have now learnt to admire it in the years that we have known it. The Corporation won its way through to public respect after a disastrous start. I would like to echo the words of appreciation that have been paid to Sir Nutcombe


Hume for all that he has done and is doing for the Corporation, and also to Lord Reith for what he did.
My only complaint against Lord Reith is the appalling things that he did to the English language in his reports. I remember raising this once before in the House and complaining of the stark, staccato telegraphese in which he wrote. One could not read the reports, but had to chant them aloud to get sense out of them. If there is one thing to the credit of the present chairman it is that he has limbered up the English and the reports are almost readable. They are not exactly garrulous even now.
I come now to the question of whether the Corporation should operate outside dependent territories. I came to this with an open mind. The argument put forward by my right hon. Friend, which I accept, is a rather intellectual one and, if I approve of it for the time being, the day will come when we may have to change our ideas. For the time being, however, I think that the C.D.C. has quite enough to do in the existing dependent territories.
I came to this with an open mind, and yesterday I refreshed my memory by going back to the fountain source—the debate on the Overseas Resources Development Act in 1947, when the Corporation was set up. It is rather an interesting experience to read that debate now. It has an historical and almost archaeological flavour, because times have changed a great deal.
It is rather odd to read that the opening speech on the Second Reading was not, as one would assume, given by the Colonial Secretary, but by the Minister of Food. The Bill before the House was to set up not only the C.D.C., but also the Overseas Food Corporation. The Minister of Food, not unnaturally, devoted most of his speech to the Overseas Food Corporation, and the C.D.C., if anything, was rather an afterthought. He used this one sentence—and this is an argument which still applies very strongly. He was talking about the possibilities in Australia, and he added:
I need hardly say to the House that the one thing which would make the development of which I have spoken in Australia or Australian Territories quite impossible would be if the corporation was called the Colonial Development Corporation or was responsible to

the Colonial Office."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th November, 1947; Vol. 443, c. 2025.]
We can change its name, but I do not think that any of us would want it to be responsible for the time being to anybody but the Colonial Office.

Mr. Callaghan: Why not?

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: Because it has still an important job to do in the dependent territories. Until that task is finished I do not think that we should contemplate a change.
I think that the quotation that I have just given still applies, but for "Australia" we must read "Ghana". It is worth noting that in the first years of its operation the Corporation under the Labour Government did not operate in India or Pakistan, which were then becoming independent territories. Implicit in the whole of that debate was the principle that the Corporation should operate only in the dependent territories, but I believe that when the phase of bringing the dependent territories to economic viability is complete we may have to look at the situation again in terms of the Corporation's Charter.
I would emphasise that it has a great deal on its plate at present. As our other responsibilities dwindle we are left with more and more responsibility for these curious territories scattered all over the world. In most cases the full independence of the kind of territories of which I am thinking cannot be seriously envisaged for many years to come. It is to them that I want to see the Corporation's efforts increasingly directed, the aim being to make them viable, at least, if independence is out of reach for some time.
I was recently in the Caribbean, in company with the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson). I was astonished at the progress that had been made in that area during the last five years, at the new confidence the people have, and at the immense economic changes which have occurred since 1955. When I first went to the West Indies, in 1953, I came back and talked to a very distinguished West Indian who was in London and is a very good friend of many of us. We both became a little gloomy, because he could not see how the West Indies


would ever pull itself out of the slough of despondency in which it then was. I am astonished at what has happened in those few years. Even if the Federation is having a difficult time politically, progress in the economic sense has been very marked.
But after the Federation achieves its independence we shall still have some curious and anomalous residual responsibilities in the Caribbean area. I do not know how many hon. Members realise that after the Federation gains its independence, quite apart from the mainland territories of British Guiana and British Honduras this House will still be responsible for the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Cocos Islands and the British Virgin Islands, and how they will be administered from the Colonial Office I do not know. I visited two of those territories—British Honduras and the British Virgin Islands—this year, and they typify the kind of problems I have in mind. The British Virgin Islands, about which most people know very little except the old Parliamentary joke about their being a long way from the Isle of Man, are in a most astonishing position.
They form a small enclave in the middle of a United States dollar economy. We find American money in circulation there de facto. The currency is that of a foreign nation—so much so that I understand that the Queen's head on the stamps is about to be overprinted with United States values. Virtually the whole of the adult population works in the American Virgin Islands. Yet I feel that we must try to maintain a British interest in these islands, so that they can for a long time retain their British character and nationality. I am sorry to say that although there are possibilities there, and although American investment is coming to the islands, there is no C.D.C. investment there.
At the other extreme there is British Honduras, which is about the size of Wales. It is twice the size of Jamaica, and has a population of only 90,000. The land is absolutely crying out for settlement, in a world that is too full of refugees. Its people have at long last accepted the fact that they must build up their population to achieve any kind of a decent standard of living, and yet the land is still empty and crying out for

pioneers to open up its riches. The C.D.C. has two small projects there—an admirably-run hotel and a flourishing citrus estate. But all the new development is being achieved with either American or Jamaican capital. Only a very small amount of British capital is going in at present.
I should like to see the C.D.C. taking the lead in opening up the country, if necessary on the lines of the old charter companies, such as the Royal Niger Company and the British South Africa Company, which did so much in Africa. That could be done in British Honduras This is the type of work for which the Corporation was invented, and for which its organisation is so suitable. For that reason alone I wish to see it continue in this work in the dependent territories and not go into the Commonwealth as well.
I now turn to the question of the Sinclair Report. Three men as distinguished as we could find anywhere in the business world—Lord Sinclair, Sir Archibald Forbes and Sir Harold Howitt—produced in three months a shrewd and sensible report with comprehensive proposals for the reform of the financial structure of the C.D.C. As all speakers so far have pointed out, it has taken the Government a year to make up their mind. I sympathise with the Corporation in every criticism that has been made in this respect.
The mild comment in the Report should have been far less restrained, because the Corporation must be relieved of the burden of its debts, for which neither the present direction nor the management is in any way responsible. Unless it can get rid of this burden, which is not a millstone or an albatross but rather a necklace round its neck, it will never be able to operate successfully. I accept the argument about it operating in the dependent territories for the time being, but we must keep an open mind about its future activities, and trust that we may have a far more definite statement about the reform of its financial structure.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. John Dugdale: I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Reigate (Sir John Vaughan-Morgan) say that if this Motion had been in the form of a censure Motion he might have supported it. That is a fascinating idea


and I feel inclined to suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) that we might change the form of the Motion in order that the hon. Gentleman might support it.

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: Only in respect of the Sinclair Report.

Mr. Callaghan: If I thought that it would attract the support of the hon. Gentleman, I should be happy to move a manuscript Amendment. Perhaps he would give an undertaking to support it.

Sir John Vaughan-Morgan: I should have to see it in draft.

Mr. Dugdale: Like other hon. Members, I shall await the draft with pleasure and hope that the hon. Member will support it.
I wish to add my hearty congratulations to those already voiced to all those who work for the Colonial Development Corporation. They have a very difficult task. It is somewhat different from the task of a private enterprise organisation in the Colonies. After all, private enterprise has to be concerned with one thing—it is perfectly correct that it should—the profitability of the concern. The C.D.C. has also to consider profitability, but in addition it has to consider other things, especially the needs of those Colonies which are going through difficult times and in which private enterprise has found it unwise to invest. I refer in particular to the most obscure of the C.D.C. projects in Tristan da Cunha. I cannot imagine any private firm starting that development which, incidentally, has turned out to be profitable and successful. That is the kind of thing which the C.D.C. is eminently qualified to do, but I should not like to see its activities confined entirely to remote islands.
The Corporation has shown a wonderful example in the way it has dealt with the Lobatsi abattoir scheme and other undertakings started in the High Commission Territories. I understand that it has been able to set aside everything above, I think a 6 per cent. profit, to be returned to the smallholders who provide the cattle. That is a remarkable example which might well be followed by private firms. The

whole of the Corporation's work in the High Commission Territories particularly the Usutu pulp works, has been a remarkable success. It has achieved something which was badly needed in the Territories and which private enterprise failed to provide in the past. I hope that its example will be followed by private enterprise.
The second task of the Corporation has been to set an example, again to private enterprise, in such matters as training schemes, especially in the Cameroons. This is referred to in its Report. It has set an example in other ways, such as having no colour bar. I know that the colour bar has been abolished in a large number of places but an example was set by the C.D.C.
I have one or two criticisms to make, and here I wish to refer in particular to the points made by the Colonial Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman said that we have to bring on the underdeveloped countries rather than those which are already developed, or words to that effect, and I agree. But let us consider these figures. In Rhodesia £20 million has been invested and in the Caribbean £13 million. I think I am right in saying that most of the latter was invested at a rather earlier period, and I should have thought that the rate of increase has diminished, whereas in Central Africa it is increasing rather than diminishing. We have been informed by the Government and by Sir Roy Welensky that there is plenty to attract capital in Central Africa and so I think it a pity that the C.D.C. should provide such a large proportion of its investment for Central Africa rather than the Caribbean. The Kariba loan for instance was a loan of £15 million. It is certainly important that that development, to which the hon. Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) referred, should take place, but I think it might have been done by some other agency than the C.D.C.
That brings me to another of the points made by the Colonial Secretary. The first point was that, generally speaking, I gather, he would prefer the C.D.C. to became more and more of a finance house and less and less of an equity shareholder. I should take exactly the opposite view. I think it important that the C.D.C. should concern itself in


the direct running of businesses of which it now has some experience. Certainly at first it did not have much to offer. Now it has a great deal more to offer in technical experience and financial experience which could be put to use instead of the C.D.C. simply lending money in great blocks, whether to Kariba or to Malayan electricity. If anyone wants to use it against my argument, I agree at once that the electricity loan was made during the time of the Labour Government, but there should not be too many of these large loans rather than equity shareholding.
I think, too, the C.D.C. should develop its profitable concerns. I am very disturbed by the suggestion of the Colonial Secretary that as soon as a concern becomes profitable it should be sold off and in that way new money should be provided for something else. It is discouraging to people running concerns to be told that if they are successful the concerns will be turned over to somebody else. They should be continued by the C.D.C. and the profits used if required for other enterprises. Obviously we need to have a great many new concerns in small outlying areas which cannot bring great profit. They can be balanced by the profitable concerns if they are kept on.
The speech of the Colonial Secretary was an exceedingly depressing one. It was depressing, not only to this House but—which is much more important—depressing for the people working on the C.D.C. to be told, as emerged from the speech, that they are a dying concern. I know the right hon. Gentleman did not use those words, but that was the impression he gave—that they were working for a dying concern whose prospects were getting less and less. The C.D.C. is only too clear about that in its own Report. It refers to Nigeria and says that it cannot proceed any further with certain schemes there because Nigeria is to be independent. Of Malaya it says that new schemes cannot be developed. Only the old schemes can be carried on.
Do the Government want to kill the Corporation? It looks as though they do, and they are going the best way about it. Instead of this kind of proposal, we need a bold, imaginative scheme. I should like the C.D.C. to be allowed to

expand into other Commonwealth countries. I should like it to be given more capital. I should like to see in particular what my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East referred to, some form of co-operation with other Commonwealth countries so that we might have a joint concern which would serve the whole Commonwealth.
That is a practical idea—far more practical than much of the talk that goes on at Prime Ministers' Conferences. It is a practical idea which would prove that we have something more we can give to the Commonwealth. Small countries could contribute a little and larger countries could contribute more. Together they could produce a big corporation which could do the kind of work which is now being done by the C.D.C. I hope that will be done, because we on this side of the House are proud of the Colonial Development Corporation. We are proud of its work, and we think it has performed a very fine task. We only hope that the Government are equally proud of it, but we fear that they are not.

8.39 p.m.

Mr. Norman Pannell: When this matter was discussed in the House in January, 1958, I was a critic of the Colonial Development Corporation and particularly of its presentation of accounts. I said that the profit showed for 1956 was illusory, because no account had been taken of what I think is called the fructification interest. I said that if this interest had been taken into account during the whole period that the Corporation had been in operation and had been added to the special losses, the Corporation would have shown an accumulated loss of £16 million.
On perusing the accounts for 1959, I think that, on the surface, the criticism still remains, but it is muted, and perhaps it disappears altogether on considering two factors. The first is that over the last three years the Corporation has had a very successful record, and the second is that we have received the Sinclair Report on the Financial Structure of the Corporation. I do not want to go too far into the complicated matter of the Sinclair Report. I am probably not capable of doing so. But I do not regard with any enthusiasm the proposal


to convert the special losses of the fructification interest, amounting to £17½ million, into a C stock which will be irredeemable and will not pay interest and which, indeed, will be dead stock. Frankly, I should prefer that we wrote off the losses of £17½ million, but I recognise the problem of the Sinclair Commission in this respect in that it could not do so under its terms of reference and within the Act under which the Corporation was established.
The accounts which we have before us are necessarily cryptic. It is not possible to obtain any real appreciation of the profitability of each project or venture, but it is clear that the Corporation has done immensely better in 1959 than in any other year, and I join with hon. Members in offering my congratulations to the staff and to the Board on the results which have been achieved.
Much has been said about broadening the basis of the Corporation. I held the view for some time that it would be wrong to broaden that basis to include independent Commonwealth countries. I subscribed to the view then expressed by other hon. Members that when a country becomes independent it must be deemed to have a viable economy, and that, in any case, there are enough Colonial Territories fully to engage the activities of the Colonial Development Corporation.
But things have changed very much in the last three years. We have seen the Colonial Empire, as it was once called, steadily shrinking. In conjunction with this, and as one of the reasons for it, we have seen the granting of independence to countries which are not economically viable. The criteria which used to be applied to the granting of independence to a Colony have had to be abandoned for various reasons. Pressures have been too great for us to maintain these criteria. We have, for example, Sierra Leone and, more particularly, Somaliland, which have achieved their independence in conditions which certainly do not hold out a prospect of a viable economy in the future without substantial aid from outside.
Another feature of the last three years, which has emerged since I last participated in a debate on this subject, is that

there is now a universal acceptance of an obligation to help underdeveloped countries. That obligation is not confined to dependent territories, but also embraces independent territories, and for us it embraces, particularly, those independent territories which have recently emerged from colonial status. I think that that was clearly emphasised at the last Prime Ministers' Conference, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) said.
If we accept that obligation, embracing the under-developed countries in the independent Commonwealth, then surely it would be wise and logical to channel at least part of that aid through an organisation which, through twelve years of trial and error, has eventually emerged to a profitable basis of operation. That seems to me to be logical, although I enter a caveat and make some provisos. For example, I think that hon. Members would agree that it is essential that we should not permit a Commonwealth Development Corporation, as a new institution might be called, to invest anywhere it chooses within the independent Commonwealth.
My right hon. Friend said that there was a tendency for the Corporation to invest its money in the more highly developed countries of the Colonial Empire. If it had a free discretion, it might wish to invest its money in the highly developed countries of Canada and Australia. If there were a change in the basis of operations of the Corporation in order to embrace the Commonwealth, the operations could not be conducted at the sole unbridled discretion of the Corporation. There would have to be some direction from Her Majesty's Government.
I was very much impressed by what I saw during my visit to Sierra Leone two years ago. It is a country of 2¼ million inhabitants. It is in a very backward condition indeed in relation to other West African territories, such as Ghana and Nigeria. So far as I know, prior to independence the Corporation had never set foot inside that territory. Although it was obviously ripe for development and crying out for it, it was only when the question of independence for the territory arose that the Corporation sent representatives there. It has


recently embarked on or participated in the building of a hotel in Freetown.
There is still great scope for the Corporation in the Colonies, but the less developed independent territories merit equal consideration. The activities of the Corporation in regard to the Colonies should be largely channelled through direct projects, although, as my right hon. Friend said, there is a case for finance house type of investment in the Colonies. That is not so in the independent territories. They now have access to the Commonwealth assistance loans, and it would be wrong, if the basis of the Corporation was changed, for it to indulge in that type of finance house business in the independent Commonwealth countries.
It cannot be said that there are not opportunities for direct projects. Hon. Members know that since Ghana achieved independence, three years ago, a large number of industries have been established there—soap making, breweries, and even an iron foundry and very many others which do not come to mind immediately. The Corporation did not invest to any great extent in the Gold Coast, as it was then, when it had the opportunity. It may have had many reasons for that. Perhaps it was reluctant at that time to indulge in direct projects because of its disastrous experience in the past. But it has emerged from that and is now sure of its ability to run direct projects at a profit. The fact that these industries have sprung up in the last three years in Ghana is an indication of the great possibilities in this field which remain in other Colonial Territories and also in the less developed independent territories.
I conclude my remarks by explaining the difficulty I feel. I think that I express the wishes of all hon. Members if I say that I want to see the financial structure of the Corporation changed. I should certainly like to see the losses written off, but if that is not possible under the terms of the Act, I should welcome the adoption of the recommendations of the Sinclair Committee. That, at least, would give the Corporation an opportunity of showing real profits in the future without the most discouraging and deadening reservations which it has had to make up to now.
I must conclude, to my great regret, by saying that if I had a choice of voting—I hope that the choice will not be put before me—on the Motion or on the Amendment, my sympathies would be strongly in favour of the Motion.

8.50 p.m.

Mr. John Stonehouse: Following the intelligent and most useful speech just made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell), it is quite apparent that there is great agreement on this problem on both sides of the House, except for the Colonial Secretary, who now appears to be a very lonely and isolated man, attacked from this side of the House and from the benches behind him.
Within three weeks this House will rise for the Summer Recess, and I have been wondering what sort of end-of-term report a headmaster would prepare. On mast subjects for which Her Majesty's Government are responsible, the comment would be, "Results not very satisfactory". On the development of the economy of the Commonwealth, the comment could well be, "Performance does not match promise."
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) quoted the communiqué of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, which The Times described in a headline as innocuous in its wording. We now know how innocuous its words were. Earlier than that, in 1958, we had the Report of the Commonwealth Trade and Economic Conference, presented to the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations, in which we read:
The main burden in carrying forward economic development programmes is being shouldered by the under-developed countries themselves. In this task, however, they have to rely and will continue to have to rely on the help of other friendly countries and international institutions.
In an earlier part of the Report there appeared these words:
…we agreed that we must do all we can, even to the extent of some sacrifice, to assist in the solution of these vital problems.
What sacrifice are the Government making? We understand from the Colonial Secretary that the amount being provided is no more than £35 million, plus the amount which was already there and which will be revolving. It appears


that Mr. MacWonder's disguise is beginning to wear a little thin, and that he is becoming Mr. MacBluff. We could, perhaps, say that while, through the Prime Ministers' communiqué, we are shouting a lot of encouraging slogans to the driver, at the same time the mechanics are dismantling the engine. The tools to do the job of economic development within the Commonwealth are to be blunted.
The C.D.C. is a case in point, and I should like the House to hear the cri de Coeur from Uganda contained in the statement of the chairman of the Uganda Development Corporation at its eighth annual general meeting. The chairman said:
Although progress in some of the African underdeveloped areas is substantial it is nevertheless not easy to narrow the gap of living standards when compared with conditions in western countries; in fact, at times, that gap widens, particularly with reduced local spending power brought about by lower prices of primary produce.
Behind that statement, of course, is the fact that in the last few years the prices of primary products have gone down, and the prices of the manufactured goods that those countries have to import have gone up, so cancelling out the financial aid given. The chairman also said:
It seems also that high level declarations of imperative assistance to such areas are at times more wordy than material and additionally, overseas manufacturing industry, reaching out for exports, usurp our natural market at prices, if not distressed, certainly lower than their own domestic prices.
Behind these words is an appeal from Uganda, an appeal for new aid and increased aid in order that the wonderful job being done by the Uganda Development Corporation can be enlarged and extended.
It is apparent from the Colonial Secretary's speech that he is a very unhappy man. He made his speech looking over his shoulder all the time, and on that shoulder is the dead hand of the Treasury. So cold was that hand that we felt the temperature go down appreciably, even on this side of the Chamber. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the lack of capital available for financial aid. I could not help thinking as he spoke of the Government's tremendous waste on such projects as Blue Streak

and others where hundreds of millions have been wasted. The amount which has been made available to the Colonial Development Corporation is a paltry sum compared with the tremendous need not only in the colonial countries but in the newly independent countries and those soon to reach independence.

Mr. A. P. Costain: Was the groundnuts scheme any better?

Mr. Stonehouse: My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) has already referred to the contraction of the area of operations of the Colonial Development Corporation. By area, the reduction is 26 per cent. and by population the reduction is from 85,690,000 to 40,700,000. But, of course, during the next twelve or eighteen months, other nations in addition to those considered by the Sinclair Committee will be reaching independence. Tanganyika is almost there, and Uganda, perhaps, in the next two years. Will the Government make up their mind what is to be the function of the C.D.C. in those countries after independence? It will be very difficult indeed for long-term plans to be worked out in relation to those countries if projects are likely to be strangled because of the coming of political independence.
The Sinclair Report itself referred to the need for more capital development to be made available. On page 3, speaking of the funds available at the time of the writing of the Report, £40 million to £50 million, the Committee said:
…that is not a large figure either in relation to the amounts already made available for development from other sources or in relations to the need which seems still to exist.
It is quite apparent from the Sinclair Committee's Report that the Government are concerned for not making more funds available to the C.D.C.
A public corporation is useful because it enables investment to be carried out without regard to short term return on the investment or high profits. One of the great advantages of the C.D.C. has been that it has been able to stimulate projects even if the profitability of them was not likely to be great within the early years. Also, it has made possible participation by people and bodies locally in the countries concerned, bringing them into the partnership.
This partnership is most important particularly as political independence is achieved, and it is a partnership which must continue even after independence.
I was very interested in the Colonial Secretary's remarks about the susceptibility of countries to investment from outside. I wonder whether it would not be useful to send a copy of the report of this debate, with the Colonial Secretary's remarks underlined, to Fidel Castro, who may be very interested in his remarks. It is significant that when these under-developed countries do not have public money invested in them through some international corporation, money which is invested in conjunction with the Government concerned, they have to accept private investment over which there is very little control. Surely the only alternatives available to these under-developed countries is public investment or private investment from outside, and it is more likely that they will be able to influence public investment coming through such organisations as the Colonial Development Corporation rather than through private companies which are notoriously interested in short-term profit and a quick return on investment and are not likely to undertake the sort of development which is vitally necessary in these territories if the economy is to be built up to any real strength.
The argument for extending the work of the Colonial Development Corporation to include independent as well as dependent territories is particularly applicable to a country like Uganda. I have the Annual Report of the Uganda Development Corporation in my hand. It has done a really remarkable job. Its activities extend to tea plantations, hotels, a cement industry, metal products, a manufacturing company, the textile industry and also the Kilembe copper mines, in which it has a close association with the C.D.C.
The Colonial Development Corporation has acted as a prop to the Uganda Development Corporation which should continue after independence, when it will be retained, we hope, by an African Government. Africans are already playing a very big part in the operations of the Corporation under the inspired leadership of the chairman, Mr. J. T. Simpson. Do the Government really

suggest that after Uganda achieves independence in eighteen months or two years' time the prop of the Colonial Development Corporation should gradually be pushed away? If so, is this any real encouragement to these inspired men who have been working in the development of this public corporation in Uganda? It has done such a remarkably successful job that I am sure it will appeal even to the capitalists sitting on the benches opposite. The profit has been considerable. [Interruption.] We are often told by hon. Members opposite that we must judge these questions from the point of view of success in monetary terms. Here we have it—a profit after paying tax of £382,000. A profit has been enjoyed from most of these enterprises of the Uganda Development Corporation for some considerable time, particularly from the copper company.

The Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport): I think that it was agreed by both sides of the House as a result of legislation which was introduced some time ago that any established enterprise run by the C.D.C. in a country before independence can continue with the co-operation of the Corporation after independence. I therefore do not see that the hon. Gentleman's argument is carrying us very far on the problem of Uganda.

Mr. Stonehouse: The point that I am making is that there are other projects which need to be developed. As the copper industry in the Kilembe area becomes more established, so will the consumer industries in that locality to serve the miners, their dependants and other people attracted to a newly developing industrial area grow. Is it suggested that the Uganda Development Corporation's job of developing those new undertakings cannot be done with the assistance of the C.D.C.? That, surely, will be the position, because investment can continue only in the copper company itself.
I shall bring my remarks to a close as soon as possible because we are all very anxious to hear the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Leather). We all know of his great interest in this subject and we hope to hear from him that he will be supporting us in the Division Lobby tonight.
I want to say this about the future of the Colonial Development Corporation. I hope that it can be transformed into a Commonwealth Development Corporation, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East. I would go further. I think that it should not be run merely by the United Kingdom. I would bring in the co-operation of Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries, including the newly-independent countries, and give them a part in running this new Commonwealth Development Corporation. Few of them, of course, will be able to make any contribution in terms of capital. Canada probably could provide a considerable amount. It is this sort of aid that we should encourage Canada to give. She did a very good job for the Colombo Plan, and there is a big field of endeavour, particularly in African countries, if a Commonwealth Development Corporation could be established.
The changing of the name and the emphasis of the Colonial Development Corporation to the Commonwealth Development Corporation would remove all the arguments which the Colonial Secretary deployed this evening. It would also, we hone, remove the sentence of execution which the Government have already announced on the Corporation or, perhaps I should say, the threat of slow strangulation.
Finally, I make the point that it is economic development in these territories, not only in the dependent but in newly independent ones, which really counts in terms of the welfare of the people of those territories. We are very glad that in many cases they have jumped over the political hurdle, but, having got over that hurdle, there is still the race towards better living standards to be run. I hope that this country and other more established members of the Commonwealth will be able to continue to give their aid to those nations through the development of strong institutions like a Commonwealth Development Corporation in order that they should have not only words of encouragement but really useful tools to get on with the job.

9.8 p.m.

Mr. E. H. C. Leather: I am sorry to have to follow the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr.

Stonehouse), because as the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) made perfectly clear, and as has been abundantly clear through the debate so far, we have for years been engaged in an all-party effort against the Executive to take effective action regarding the Colonial Development Corporation. The hon. Member for Wednesbury has for the first time tonight introduced a note of party rancour.

Mr. Robert Edwards: Party rancour was first introduced by one of the hon. Member's hon. Friends who shouted an interruption about groundnuts.

Mr. Leather: No, it was not. In any event, the hon. Member has been here only a short time. Until that moment, our argument had been kept consistent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell) said. My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan) indicated his hope that we could avoid dividing on party lines tonight, because there are many of us on this side who have the greatest sympathy with the Motion. With those remarks, I will certainly do my best to avoid being drawn into the trap of replying to the remarks of the hon. Member for Wednesbury. Many of them were irrelevant to the issue and certainly they do not make it easier for us to get together in something which is much more important; that is, the future of the Colonial Development Corporation.
I must say frankly, as several hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, that I was singularly disappointed with the speech of my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary. For the first five or ten minutes of my right hon. Friend's speech, I had the feeling that, to pervert a well-known American phrase, we would get "the real Macleod". At some stage, however, my right hon. Friend seemed to start getting the official brief. I noticed it particularly when my right hon. Friend used, tersely and momentarily, the argument that the Colonial Development Corporation could put management but not capital into the emergent territories. It may have been purely accidental, but my right hon. Friend stopped right in the middle


of that sentence and took a close look at his notes. I wondered whether he was finding it difficult to believe his own eyes. It may have been pure chance, but that is how it appeared. I should much prefer to see the Government's Amendment, not as an Amendment to the Motion, but as an addendum to it. If the Motion and the Amendment were put together, I should be glad to vote for them.
The hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East referred to our previous debates on the subject. She referred in particular to the debate in November, 1956. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has yet had an opportunity to refer to that debate. I remind my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations, however, that on that occasion we had agreed, as one usually does in this House, between the usual channels that having had a good debate, we would withdraw our Motion. At the end of the day, my right hon. Friend's predecessor at the Commonwealth Relations Office made such a deplorable speech that the entire House ganged up against the unfortunate Minister and the Whip and our Motion was passed. The following week, his noble Friend proudly claimed in the House of Lords a great step forward in Government policy. Needless to say, nothing was done, but that was what happened.

Mr. Alport: I recollect the report of that occasion. I think I am right in saying, however, that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works holds it against my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Leather) that he did not fulfil an undertaking which he gave at that time that in certain circumstances, which eventually came true, he would eat his hat.

Mr. Leather: I admire my right hon. Friend's courage. That was a good ball, but, alas, I was not the person who gave the undertaking. It was somebody else. I do not feel, therefore, that I am I.b.w.
The argument which my right hon. Friend finally put forward concerning the emergent territories, and which was so strongly reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate, carried great weight. My right hon. Friend will, I hope, forgive me when I say that at that moment he put me in mind of a

venerable Member of the House in the last century of whom it was said that he came to his opinions instantaneously and thought up the arguments for them afterwards. One had the impression today that my right hon. Friend had been told, "This is what the Government think" and then somebody said, "Thank heaven, at long last they have found a chap clever enough to think of a good reason for it." The argument concerning the question of priorities of the great developments which are yet to be carried out and are vitally needed in the poorer territories which will remain dependent was, on balance, convincing on that specific point.
Then, however, we go on to the Government's Amendment, which says that we look forward "to future successes…" My right hon. Friend will agree that we cannot look forward to anything until we have got the questions of the financial structure and the Sinclair Report clearly established in our minds. My right hon. Friend at least took us some way tonight. At long last, we have succeeded in getting a member of the Government at least to acknowledge that the Sinclair Report has been considered. This is a great step forward and I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. We have been fighting this battle for a good many years. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for getting us this little bit more forward.
With the great respect and regard which I and all of us have for my right hon. Friend and his predecessor, no one would ever accuse him or my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) of slacking on the job and not working hard enough. They have successively spent their time and exhausted their energies in travelling the globe and dealing with one constitutional problem and crisis after another. Time after time the country and the House have had reason to be grateful to them. But I implore my right hon. Friend please to stay at home long enough to look at this economic problem. If this debate achieves nothing else except, for the first time in ten years, to persuade the Colonial Secretary to look at these economic matters himself it will have served a useful purpose.
We think of the continuous hamstringing of the C.D.C. and of the continuous


efforts primarily by the Treasury to wreck it. We all know that the Treasury wants to wreck it. Then we look at what happens in the territories that emerge. They immediately go somewhere else for their economic aid—not here but to the United States, to an international organisation, or to Russia or China. We look at what is happening in Nigeria. I am told, and I believe that it is true, that almost the entire medical service there is quitting. I do not pretend to know much about Somaliland but I am told that there is a real risk that it may collapse completely.
These are economic problems of adjusting aid and of the means of giving it. Throughout this field, wherever we look, there is a story of continuous failure. If only the Colonial Secretary will himself take charge of this and look at the C.D.C. and questions of economic aid, I certainly have enough confidence to be able to sit back and say that at long last we shall get somewhere. We have certainly got nowhere up to now.
As for the Sinclair Report, the question of the financial structure has been dealt with at length in the debate and I am entirely with those on both sides of the House who have said that they hope that the Government will take the Report seriously. A further matter in the Sinclair Report which is vital to the domestic operation of the C.D.C. is the problem of accountability to Parliament. I cannot help feeling that someone is pulling an awfully fast one somewhere, somehow.
We have had consistent complaints over the years from successive chairmen of the C.D.C. that they have been constantly hamstrung by the Treasury. There have been complaints that we pass an Act of Parliament and give the Corporation a directive to do certain things and promptly it is told when it comes to do them that they can be done only with the permission of the Treasury, and time after time that permission has not been forthcoming until so many months and sometimes years of argument have elapsed that the project has become impossible anyhow.
Paragraph 68 of the Sinclair Report says:
We also realise that there is probably no feasible alternative in principle to the present

system, but there is no reason why it should not be operated sensibly.
That is a strong phrase for a body like this to use. It adds:
The Board of the Corporation is appointed by the Secretary of State as a responsible body of men with ability and experience It is almost axiomatic that its investments outside the 'finance-house' field are attended by some degree of risk. It cannot be to the interest of the Corporation, or the territories it is designed to assist, that it should embark on a project which has no prospect of success. In submitting a proposal it can state the degree of risk involved and why, despite that risk, it considers it worth doing. If it is not contrary to public policy and is within the Act, it would seem to be right that the Secretary of State should not, unless in very exceptional circumstances, question the wisdom of the Corporation's undertaking it.
If we take out the phrase "Secretary of State", which the Committee uses politely, and put in "the Treasury", we in this House should know exactly where we stand.
We are told that the Corporation must always get permission for doing this, that and the other because of the vital importance of accountability to Parliament for the use of the taxpayers' money. There have been times when quite a number of us in this House in the last few months have wished that the Treasury would take such scrupulous care of the expenditure of the taxpayers' money in other directions, but it is extraordinary how in this one it seems to be so peculiarly immaculate in carrying out its duties.
When it comes to international bodies over which this House has no control at all, the Treasury Ministers and Departments can urge that we should vote vast sums of money, hundreds of millions of pounds, to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Not so long ago, we voted a vast sum—I cannot remember how many million—to an international development authority—was it £50 million? They come here and urge us to vote millions to the United Nations Agencies. Is it suggested that these bodies are accountable to this House for the expenditure of the taxpayers' money? Why is it that, when we come to bodies over which we have complete control, on which our Ministers appoint every single director, this doctrine has to be applied to every single project down to the expenditure of only £100,000?—It must be put under a magnifying glass


and torn to pieces before it can go ahead, in order to satisfy the doctrine of accountability to Parliament. Yet, in many other fields, including this particular kind of field, under international organisations, apparently, the doctrine is never put forward at all. This seems to me to be an extraordinary anomaly.
This is a problem we have been wrestling with for a long time. I am in favour of getting more aid for the underdeveloped territories in the Commonwealth. I am all in favour of helping the United Nations to deal with unfortunate starving children in Indonesia or anywhere we like, but I am much more interested in doing something ourselves for the people in the British Commonwealth. In heaven's name, if it means anything at all, charity—or business—ought to begin at home. We seem to take a very generous attitude on the foreign front, but when it comes to the home front we are extraordinarily stingy.
I implore my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations to try to give us some encouragement so that the debate will not end in a Division, because if he does not do that, we could be in a very odd and unpleasant position. Of course, the party Whips can muster a substantial majority of Members who did not listen to the debate to vote for the Government, while a large percentage of those who did listen to it might end up in the wrong Lobby.

Mr. Callaghan: We on our side do not want to divide on this issue, and if it would help in avoiding a Division, we would be very ready indeed to accept the Government Amendment as an addendum to our Motion, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

Mr. Leather: As is often said at that Box, that, I am afraid, is not a question for me. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting it to me, and, speaking purely for North Somerset, I accept it. I hope that my right hon. Friend will take a similar view. I feel that we have had a very useful discussion, when a new Minister, whom everyone wishes well and for whom everyone has the greatest regard, has for the first time had a chance to face the united opinion of both sides of the House of Commons on this matter. I feel sure

that he has got the point and that he has seen how we feel. He has certainly listened to arguments which I have no doubt he has not had before. If we can feel that as a result of the debate tonight, the Secretary of State will tackle these things himself and get down to them, I think both the Opposition and those of us on this side of the House will have fulfilled a very useful purpose this evening.

9.25 p.m.

Dr. Barnett Stross: I am sure that the Secretary of State and the Minister of State will not be surprised that I, too, prefer the Motion to the Amendment, although I would not mind seeing the two attached together. I would not have risen had it not been for the very startling words, which I know to be true, of the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Leather), which said that the entire medical service in Nigeria was walking out.
I know very little about the techniques of capital investment, business structure, profitability, or lack of profitability of business ventures, but I know a little about the need for skilled personnel, both in the colonial and the emergent territories, in particular, about the value of technicians and especially medical personnel.
I put a Question on the subject to the Colonial Secretary today, although it was not quite fair to him. I asked him whether he would take steps to integrate the Colonial Medical Service with the National Health Service. I did not expect him to agree, but we got some information from him. He said that he had 50 vacant places in territories for which he was responsible. Although I asked him the Question and have a similar question to put to the Minister of State, what I had in mind—and I think that the right hon. Gentleman understood—was this.
We are not able to send our own people to help either the Colonies or the emergent territories because we have not put the matter absolutely right. That is to say, our young talented men are frightened to leave our own National Health Service—and this applies to all technicians as well as doctors, to engineers, for instance—because they are afraid of losing promotion and finding


that there is no place for them when they return home.
I am certain that skilled human beings are as important as capital in both Colonial and emergent territories. The Colonial Secretary said today that the large territories in East Africa were increasingly using local doctors qualified at the medical school at Makerere. He went on to say something hopeful. He said that arrangements were already in force for doctors in the National Health Service to serve overseas while preserving their pensions rights here and, in cases where the home employers were able to keep the post open while a doctor was serving abroad, secondment was arranged.
That last phrase is not always applicable. Posts are not kept open sufficiently frequently to permit what we all want, which is to give the kind of assistance abroad which we want to give and to give our men the experience which they would like to have and ought to have. I urge that this be considered as a matter of urgency. It applies to the new emergent territories even more than to the Colonial Territories. They have a tendency to say that they do not want our men and that they must go home. A little later they send their emmissaries to this country to recruit personnel from here, but when that happens it is already too late because of the difficulties I have mentioned.
The Colonial Secretary and the Minister of State need to take a number of administrative actions. One is to make certain that when a territory gains its freedom it should understand how dangerous it is to throw away a skilled Civil Service, especially a technical Civil Service, which is available to it. Secondly, it should encourage those men to stay on and not go home and accept their pension rights, or surrender them and take another post. The third part of their duty should be to make it easy for young men who are not in the Civil Service to go out on tours of duty.
If I have been a little wide of the mark, I apologise for raising this matter, but I think that human beings who are technically trained and who can go out from this country to the emergent territories or Colonies are as important as capital investment.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: At the conclusion of his speech, the Colonial Secretary forgot to move the Government's Amendment. I must confess that I was not surprised. I think there may be something in the theory of the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Leather) that the right hon. Gentleman was put out of his stride by the kind of brief that he found himself reading. It was one of the most disappointing speeches that we have heard from him since he took his present office.
We have become accustomed to regard him with gratitude as a politically progressive member of the Conservative Party in colonial policy, but after his speech today we must regard him as an economic reactionary on colonial matters. I hope that this is because he has not yet had time to study the full implications of what he told the House.
We have had a remarkable debate, though not one that is out of continuity with the whole series of debates on this subject over the years. All of the speeches, without exception, have given more support to the points which have been put from this side of the House than to those put by the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, we had the hon. Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan)—with whom I went recently to the West Indies—stating that his only reason for not supporting us was that we had not censured the Government adequately for something that was not in our Motion. Both the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell) and the hon. Member for Somerset, North —whose interest in this goes back many years—made it clear that they thought the Government, on balance, were wrong in this matter.
It has been generally agreed by all members who take an interest in these affairs that the C.D.C. is that kind of sensible partnership between public enterprise and private enterprise on which, in many ways, the future of the economically under-developed territories very much depends. What kind of future have the Government offered for this Corporation in the right hon. Gentleman's speech?
In the first place, the Government—and I want to be as fair as I can—have agreed that there is a need for some alteration in the capital structure of the


Corporation. This is rather a modest concession in the form in which it comes from the Government at this stage, because the report of the Sinclair Committee has been in the hands of the Government for almost exactly a year, and we were not told, in the right hon. Gentleman's speech, what alterations he was thinking about. We were given no details.
There was no answer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) as to whether the Government were proposing legislation in the immediate future on this subject. I hope that we may have more information on that tonight. The fact is that over twelve months, as I understand it, the Government have had no discussions on the recommendations of the Report with the Corporation. It is rather astonishing that we should have this debate tonight, and that the Government should be so vague about what they are to do when they have not had consultations with the Corporation most directly affected.
What is more important is that the Colonial Secretary enunciated a general financial philosophy for the future of the Corporation with which we on our side cannot agree. He said that the Corporation should acquire fresh capital for further activities by means of selling its successful developments. When my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East was mentioning the successes of the Corporation, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) interjected that the Corporation was so successful the Government were almost certain to be tempted to denationalise it. His joke was taken a little too seriously by the Colonial Secretary, because, in some ways, that is what is being proposed.
Then the Colonial Secretary recommended that the Corporation should expand the finance house part of its business rather than its economic development side. Further, he said that there was to be no more Government money for the Corporation, certainly in the immediate future, and that it would have to rely on what it could raise in the market within the limit of the £20 million to which it is entitled. Finally,

he said quite frankly that he foresaw the Corporation having to operate within narrower and narrower geographical limits.
As I have said, hon. Members on this side of the House object in principle to some of these economic proposals, but we do not press that side of our opposition in this debate. We are more concerned about the practical results, which can be achieved by the Corporation, and which enjoy the general support of interested Members on both sides of the Committee. The kind of future which the Colonial Secretary has outlined tonight is bound to mean that the Corporation will not be able to retain the services of its best and most vigorous people in future. It will not be able to attract the enthusiasm, devotion and skill in the future that hon. Members on both sides have talked of tonight if its future is to be contracted within the financial limits described by the right hon. Gentleman. I believe that his proposal that the Corporation should operate within ever narrower limits is a disastrous doctrine.
What case does the right hon. Gentleman put forward in support of his proposal? First, he puts the general point that the real question is not so much whether the Corporation would operate in the newly independent territories of the Commonwealth, but what amount of capital can be made available to these territories. He said that in his view the capital available was very limited. There are bound to be limits to the amount of capital which can be made available by this country to the under-developed countries that we wish to help, but we feel that the Government could do a great deal more than they are doing.
The main point, however, is that, in its way, the Corporation is a unique asset, in terms of managerial "know-how" for the development of underdeveloped territories. It is that which gives the Corporation its special place and its special importance in dealing with the problems of the under-developed territories. As anybody who has had any sort of experience of these problems knows, it is not only a question of getting enough capital but of making sure that that capital is properly used when it is sent to these territories.
I have recently returned from the West Indies, where I saw excellent developments being undertaken by Governments with the best interests of their citizens at heart. These developments, under the colonial development and welfare funds, were in some instances being delayed, or were not taking place as quickly or as efficiently as they might have been, simply because an adequate amount of knowledge, skill and technique was not available. It is this knowledge, built up very painfully, and at great expense to the British taxpayer over the years, that the Corporation possesses. It is that which we wish to preserve, and which we believe is threatened by the Government's attitude towards the Corporation's operations in the newly independent territories.
It is a mistakenly legalistic attitude that when independence comes the Corporation should no longer be allowed to start new projects in the territory concerned. It is true that at the point of independence there is a clean break in terms of legal relationships between this country and the formerly dependent Colonial Territory, but there is not a clean break in terms of economic relationships—except in the mind of the British Treasury. The economic relationship between an ex-Colony and ourselves has deep historical roots, which are not pulled up overnight by passing an Act of independence.
The Economic dependence of a former Colony remains even when it becomes fully independent politically. So we say that there is need here for economic continuity. It is our view that the Government have given away their case on this issue because their argument that we ought not to go on with new projects in the territories of independent members of the Commonwealth is that it would be incompatible with the financial responsibility of the Government to Parliament. In fact, 44 out of the 88 projects listed in the Corporation's Report are in territories either already independent or about to become independent.
The projects will go on. The Corporation can expand them and, indeed, it has done so in Malaya. It can set up subsidiaries. It can do a great deal, and everything is done with our money in the independent Commonwealth coun-

tries. The projects fit into each country's own development plan, no doubt in their own way, but that does not prevent us carrying on that kind of activity.
It seems illogical that the Government should let this large amount of economic activity be carried on in the new countries, but not allow the Corporation to have the incentive of new and exciting projects to provide wider horizons for its staff. I say this with respect, but I think that the Secretary of State was in a condition of some intellectual confusion on this issue, which is unusual. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the need to conserve the funds of the Corporation for what he called the truly underdeveloped countries. By that I took him to mean that the formerly dependent territories which became independent were no longer truly underdeveloped and that the only truly underdeveloped territories are those which remain dependent.
In our hands today there is a Supplementary Estimate for a fairly large sum of money for economic assistance to the new independent country of Somaliland, and that is a good thing. We shall shortly move towards independence in Sierra Leone. Both are underdeveloped territories. Why is the Corporation to be prevented from doing new work in that sort of country? I think that the answer is this. We have seen great alterations in the face of Africa over the last few months. We have had the Prime Minister's famous wind of change blowing through Africa and through some sections of this House, but I agree with the hon. Member for Somerset, North that it has not blown through the Treasury yet.
The importance of giving enough aid from highly developed countries to underdeveloped territories and using it effectively with experience and skill is one of the great challenges facing our country in this generation. I believe that the Government have shown themselves lacking in adequate vision. They are short-sighted and unimaginative in the face of this problem. I hope that I may yet be wrong.
The hon. Member for Somerset, North said he would be prepared to see the Government's Amendment as an addendum to our Motion. My hon. Friend said that we had no desire to divide the House on this matter on which so manys


of us are agreed. I ask the Minister whether, in view of the degree of unanimity and the importance of the work of the Corporation in the future, he would accept my hon. Friend's offer and allow this Motion, with his addendum, to go forward as the unanimous opinion of the House of Commons.

9.45 p.m.

The Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport): When the time comes, if indeed it does come, to vote on the Motion and the Amendment, I hope that the House will recognise the narrow limits which are represented by the wording of the Motion itself.
We have discussed a great many aspects of the problems of the Colonial Development Corporation tonight and that, I think, is what the whole House would wish, but the Motion is essentially a narrow one. It is not, for instance, limited to a point which seemed to be very much the concern of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) and in some degree the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Leather), at any rate in part of his speech—that is, the sort of thing to which this type of money, this type of assistance, should be devoted.
I think we could have followed them into an argument whether in fact the money which is being devoted through the C.D.C. might not have better been employed through C.D. and W. funds, but that is not the issue tonight.
It is not the issue as to whether the proposals of the Sinclair Committee are advisable or not. I think, and I know my right hon. Friend understands this well, that hon. Members opposite have been extremely unfair to him in the way in which they have approached the statement he made earlier about the Sinclair Report. It is not easy by any means to reach final decisions on matters which not only affect the organisation of a great national corporation, but also the general policy in regard to development in the Commonwealth Territories. My right hon. Friend, as I think hon. Members will agree when tomorrow they have read his remarks, gave a very clear indication, in a preliminary form, of his general approach to the recommendations of the Sinclair Report.

Mr. Callaghan: Mr. Callaghan rose——

Mr. Alport: I have only a very short time in which to speak.

Mr. Callaghan: The right hon. Gentleman accused us of being unfair. Does he really think it unfair to accuse the Government of indifference when they have had that Report in their hands for a year and yet have not entered into discussions with the Colonial Development Corporation about how it should be implemented?

Mr. Alport: That is not indifference at all. This is an extremely difficult policy decision, and the fact is that my right hon. Friend said that he hoped he would be able to provide a White Paper on the subject as soon as possible. That, however, is not the issue before the House at present. The issue is an extremely limited one in one sense of the word. It is, how far the activities of the C.D.C. should be extended to the independent Commonwealth.
I quite agree with the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) in his newly-found statistical analysis that this probably is the eighteenth time in which a Minister has endeavoured to explain to him and to his colleagues some of the problems which are involved in this particular aspect of policy in regard to the C.D.C. I hope that, as a result of a few minutes' hard work, I may be able to help the hon. Member a little way on the road to full understanding.
What is the issue? The issue is fundamentally as follows. The funds which are available for Commonwealth development are necessarily limited. The hon. Member agreed that in his speech. Therefore, it is not unimportant that we should make certain that those funds which are available go to the sort of things on which we would wish to see them employed. The funds which are available to the C.D.C. are directed, as my right hon. Friend said, to the dependent territories. I feel certain that hon. Members on both sides of the House would not claim that the funds which are available are more than are necessary for the purposes for which they are required.
I, and I think a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House, have seen the C.D.C. in action. We know


the value of the work it does, particularly in those territories which do not make an immediate appeal to ordinary investment and whose resources are by no means great. I think in particular of the three High Commission Territories with which I am concerned, Basutoland, Swaziland and Bechuanaland.
The contribution which the C.D.C. has made, as the right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) pointed out, to Swaziland and Bechuanaland is substantial. The sums of money involved run into many millions of pounds, either committed or approved. This has almost revolutionised the prospects in Swaziland, through the work of the C.D.C. and private enterprise working either in co-operation with or alongside the C.D.C. I will not say that it has revolutionised the position in Bechuanaland.
In Basutoland that has not happened. In Basutoland we have had great difficulty in finding a particular project which would be suitable for the expenditure of the kind of finance which the C.D.C. has available. After I paid a visit there two years ago, the C.D.C. made a second investigation of the possibilities in Basutoland and, as far as we can see, the only development which will offer prospects for the immediate future —and it might be the middle future for all I know—is that of the water and hydro-electric power potentialities of Basutoland.
That will require a great deal of money. It will require, admittedly, co-operation among the consumers, who will probably be in the Orange Free State as well as in Basutoland, the mining interests and so on, if this great scheme comes into being. But we have great hopes of Oxbow; we hope that it will be of great importance to this territory, where the alternative resources open to development, to put it at its highest, are extremely limited.
If the field of operation of C.D.C. were extended to other countries of the Commonwealth, the chances would be automatically reduced of the very substantial finance which will be required for Oxbow. Let me take an example which the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East himself gave. He used the phrase that the C.D.C. should be allowed to invest

"wherever the investment opportunity arises." In Canada? In Australia? In India?

Mr. Callaghan: The right hon. Member is putting words into my mouth which I did not say.

Mr. Alport: I am not putting words into the hon. Member's mouth. I am dealing not only with the logic of the Motion but also with a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell), who pointed out the difficulties which the C.D.C. would have if its investment were to be directed, let us say, towards Australia. But if not Australia, what about India?
I have referred to the small territories in which the C.D.C. can properly operate, to which it has made a substantial contribution and for which the resources which are likely to be available to it during the period ahead, which must be limited, will be no more than adequate for their needs, even allowing for the fact that Nigeria may become independent in due course. Are we to prevent those small countries from obtaining that assistance because it is the wish of many people connected with the C.D.C. and of hon. Members opposite that the activities of the C.D.C. should be directed in future to a field in which it was never at any time intended to operate?

Mr. Callaghan: The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that it is not our intention. He is putting up ninepins in order to knock them down again. We are asking that the C.D.C. should be allowed to continue in areas in which it now operates and from which it will be artificially cut off because of the accident of independence. That is all there is to it. The case has been made many times. The right hon. Gentleman is wasting time by putting up false arguments.

Mr. Alport: That is not what the Motion says, it is not what the hon. Gentleman argued in his speech, and it is not what is happening at present. I ask hon. Members to consider Nigeria. The hon. Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) said that there was a complete cut-off of assistance to Nigeria when it became independent. The fact is that the C.D.C. already has authority to


spend £7 or £8 million on a number of projects there. Of this, only £2 to £3 million have so far been spent. Through the development companies in the Eastern and Northern Regions and through the Federal Investment Company of Nigeria, the Corporation will continue to be associated with development projects. Similar arrangements apply to other territories which have already reached, or will soon reach, full independence. So long as the project has been approved before independence, there is no limit on when the C.D.C. may draw the money. That is perfectly clear, and it is precisely what we want.

Mr. Callaghan: Who are "we"?

Mr. Alport: "We" in this case are those who have given the matter great thought and have, as I agree that hon. Gentlemen opposite have, a sincere interest in the problem. What we want to see is that the C.D.C. continues to fulfil the essential rôle for which it was set up, which was to help underdeveloped countries which were the direct responsibility of the United Kingdom to achieve higher standards of living as a result of our association with them.
We believe that the hon. Gentleman's plan, although it is undoubtedly put forward sincerely, will deflect the C.D.C. from carrying out its proper rôle, when indeed there may be no other Corporation of its like to act as its substitute. The truth is that this is not a question of cutting off financial aid as soon as independence is achieved. I have already shown that the C.D.C. continues to operate in the existing established field of its activities after independence.
Last week we announced in the House a Commonwealth Assistance Loan for India. We hope in a very short time to be able to complete discussions on

some form of financial assistance to Pakistan. Since the Commonwealth Assistance Loans have been brought into being, we have an alternative and, in our view, far more effective and appropriate, means of providing for independent countries the financial assistance that they require within the resources available. It might have been reasonable for hon. Gentlemen to have argued as they did before the Commonwealth Assistance Loans came into being, but it is no longer logical or appropriate.

Mr. Callaghan: Where is the skilled manpower?

Mr. Alport: In spite of all the opportunities that Commonwealth countries have had up to the present to take such advantage as they can without financial contribution of the services of the skilled men available to the C.D.C., they have not used them. Why? Because what they are concerned with primarily is, on the one hand, the provision of the money which they can use at their own discretion in accordance with their own economic policies for the economic and social development of their countries and, on the other hand, that they should have available from this country and through United Nations sources technical assistance, which is of great importance to them.
Therefore, I ask hon. Gentlemen on both sides to consider the Motion very carefully. I hope that they will agree and approve the Amendment which we have tabled to the narrow and, as we believe it to be, unwise proposal represented in the Motion.

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 139, Noes 178.

Division No. 137.]
AYES
[9.59 p.m.


Ainsley, William
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Foot, Dingle


Albu, Austen
Callaghan, James
Forman, J. C.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)


Beaney, Alan
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh


Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)
Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.


Blackburn, F.
Davles, Harold (Leek)
Gourlay, Harry


Boardman, H.
Deer, George
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Lianelly)


Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)
Dempsey, James
Griffiths, W. (Exchange)


Boyden, James
Diamond, John
Grimond, J.


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)


Brockway, A. Fenner
Ede, Rt. Hon. Chuter
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil(Colne Valley)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Edelman, Maurice
Hamilton, William (West Fife)


Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Hannan, William


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
Hart, Mrs. Judith


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Fitoh, Alan
Hayman, F. H.




Healey, Denis
Mayhew, Christopher
Small, William


Henderson,Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis)
Mendelson, J. J.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Herbison, Miss Margaret
Millan, Bruce
Sorensen, R. W.


Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Mitchison, G. R.
Soskioe, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Hilton, A. V.
Morris, John
Spriggs, Leslie


Holman, Percy
Moyle, Arthur
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Holt, Arthur
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Stonehouse, John


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Noel-Baker,Rt.Hn.Philip(Derby,S.)
Stones, William


Hunter, A. E.
Oliver, G. H.
Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)


Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Oram, A. E.
Summerskill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Edith


Janner, Barnett
Oswald, Thomas
Swingler, Stephen


Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas
Owen, Will
Sylvester, George


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Padley, W. E.
Symonds, J. B.


Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)


Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Parkin, B. T. (Paddington, N.)
Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)


Kelley, Richard
Paton, John
Thornton, Ernest


Kenyon, Clifford
Pavitt, Laurence
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Pentland, Norman
Wainwright, Edwin


King, Dr. Horace
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Warbey, William


Lawson, George
Proctor, W. T.
Weitzman, David


Ledger, Ron
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Randall, Harry
White, Mrs. Eirene


Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Rankin, John
Whitlock, William


McCann, John
Redhead, E. C.
Wiloock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Mclnnes, James
Reynolds, G. W.
Williams, Rev. LI. (Abertillery)


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Wiliams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Mackie, John
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Woof, Robert


Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Wyatt, Woodrow


Manuel, A. C.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Zilliacus, K.


Mapp, Charles
Skeffington, Arthur



Marsh, Richard
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Mahon and Mr. Probert.




NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Loveys, Walter H.


Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)
Freeth, Denzil
Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby


Alport, Rt. Hon. C. J. M.
Gardner, Edward
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Gibson-Watt, David
McAdden, Stephen


Atkins, Humphrey
Glover, Sir Douglas
MacArthur, Ian


Barlow, Sir John
Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)


Barter, John
Goodhart, Philip
McMaster, Stanley R.


Batsford, Brian
Goodhew, Victor
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)


Beamish, Col. Tufton
Grant, Rt. Hon. William (woodside)
Maddan, Martin


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Green, Alan
Maltland, Cdr. Sir John


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos &amp; Fhm)
Grimston, Sir Robert
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.


Berkeley, Humphry
Hall, John (Wyoombe)
Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest


Bidgood, John C.
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Marshall, Douglas


Biggs-Davison, John
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Marten, Neil


Bingham, R. M.
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)


Bishop, F. P.
Harvie Anderson, Miss
Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald


Bossom, Clive
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Mawby, Ray


Bourne-Arton, A.
Hendry, Forbes
Mills, Stratton


Box, Donald
Hicks Beach, Maj. W,
Montgomery, Fergus


Boyle, Sir Edward
Hiley, Joseph
Morgan, William


Brewis, John
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Neave, Airey


Brooman-White, R.
Hirst, Geoffrey
Noble, Michael


Browne, Percy (Torrington)
Hobson, John
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie


Burden, F. A.
Holland, Philip
Osborne, Cyril (Louth)


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Hornby, R. P.
Page, A. John (Harrow, West)


Garr, Compton (Barons Court)
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Page, Graham


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John
Partridge, E.


Cole, Norman
Hughes-Young, Michael
Pearson, Frank (Clltheroe)


Collard, Richard
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Peel, John


Cooper, A. E.
Iremonger, T. L.
Percival, Ian


Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Jackson, John
Pitt, Miss Edith


Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.




Cordle, John
James, David
Pott, Percivall


Costain, A. P.
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Powell, J. Enoch


Craddock, Sir Beresford
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Prior, J. M. L.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Cunningham, Knox
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Ramsden, James


Dalkeith, Earl of
Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Rawlinson, Peter


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Kimball, Ma[...]cus
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin


Deedes, W. F.
Kirk, Peter
Renton, David


de Ferranti, Basil
Kitson, Timothy
Ridsdale, Julian


Duncan, Sir James
Leavey, J. A.
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Eden, John
Leburn, Gilmour
Roots, William


Elliott, R. W.
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Scott-Hopkins, James


Emery, Peter
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Sharples, Richard


Farey-Jones, F. W.
Lindsay, Martin
Shaw, M.


Farr, John
Linstead, Sir Hugh
Shepherd, William


Finlay, Graeme
Litchfield, Capt. John
Litchfield, Capt. John


Fisher, Nigel
Lloyd,Rt.Hn. Geoffrey(Sut'nC'dfield)
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd &amp; Chiswlok)


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Longden, Gilbert
Smithers, Peter







Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher
Tweedsmuir, Lady
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Stevens, Geoffrey
Vane, W. M. F.
Woodhouse, C. M.


Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)
Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John
Woodnutt, Mark


Stodart, J. A.
Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis
Woollam, John


Studholme, Sir Henry
Wall, Patrick
Worsley, Marcus


Taylor, W.J. (Bradford, N.)
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Temple, John M.
Watts, James



Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)
Whitelaw, William
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Mr. E. Wakefield and Colonel J. H. Harrison.


Tilney, John (Wavertree)
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)



Turner, Colin
Wise, A. R.

Proposed words there added.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House congratulates the members and staff of the Colonial Development Corporation on their Report and Accounts for 1959 and looks forward to future successes by the Corporation in assisting the economic development of overseas dependent territories.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE, ENGLAND (SUPERANNUATION)

10.3 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): I beg to move,
That the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Amendment) Regulations, 1960, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.
These Regulations amend the National Health Service (Superannuation) Regulations, 1955, and their main purpose is to deal with the position which has arisen following the Report of the Government Actuary on the National Health Service Superannuation Scheme for the period 1948 to 31st March, 1955.
The Report revealed a deficiency in the Scheme of £79·5 million, and on 9th November last my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister made a statement, in answer to a Question in the House, outlining the proposals for meeting the deficiency. These were first, £34 million, representing an initial deficiency attributable to the recognition of rights and expectations of those transferred to the National Health Service when it was set up and to the entry into the Superannuation Scheme then of persons above the normal age of entry, would be liquidated by the Exchequer crediting the Superannuation Account with this amount.
Secondly, an accounting adjustment would be made to meet the deficiency of £4·1 million arising from payments to

practitioners who, as an alternative to contributing to the Scheme, maintain individual assurance policies. Thirdly, a saving of £0·9 million would be made by ceasing to pay interest on returned contributions in the case of voluntary withdrawal from the Scheme. Fourthly, the remainder of the deficiency, estimated at £40·5 million, would be met by payment of a special supplementary employer's contribution of 1½ per cent. of remuneration.
On 17th March last, in Answer to a Question, my right hon. and learned Friend gave an undertaking to the House that withdrawal of the right of Health Service staffs to receive interest when their contributions are returned to them on voluntary resignation would be applied only to staff who join after the date on which the new arrangements came into operation, and that staff in post before that date would retain their present right to interest, so that on this occasion no part of the deficit would, in fact, be met by the staffs. At the same time, my right hon. and learned Friend made it clear that if, in future, any further adjustments were to become necessary to meet actuarial deficits which might arise, it must not be assumed that the pattern followed this time in making adjustments would necessarily be followed again.
It is the implementation of the proposal for a supplementary employer's contribution and the new arrangements for the payment of interest on returned contributions that entail amendment of the 1955 Regulations. The opportunity has been taken to provide also for other amendments arising from the actuarial, investigation of the Scheme.
Briefly, the Regulations provide as follows. Regulations 1 and 2 deal with citation, commencement and interpretation. The definition of "excepted officer"—that is, the person affected by my right hon. and learned Friend's undertaking of 17th March—covers, in general, those who,


having been in the Health Service Superannuation Scheme before the date of operation of these Regulations remain in it without loss of their earlier service in the Scheme, and also those coming from the Health Service of Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Isle of Man with the right to interest on returned contributions.
Regulation 3 provides for the payment by every Health Service employing authority in respect of every officer for whom the authority is already liable to make a contribution, of an additional contribution of 1½ per cent. of the remuneration on which present contributions are based. The rates of employee contribution are not affected by this Amendment. The additional contribution was designed to achieve liquidation within twenty years of that part of the deficiency estimated at £40·5 million.
Regulation 4 provides that in respect of any person who is not an "excepted officer" a new regulation shall be substituted for Regulation 35 of the 1955 Regulations, which relates to the return of superannuation contributions. The existing Regulation 35 will continue to apply to "excepted officers". The new Regulation no longer makes provision for the payment of interest on contributions returned in the case of voluntary withdrawal from the Scheme, or where the cessation of employment is on account of inefficiency or misconduct.
While the special arrangements made for "excepted officers" mean that the staffs will not now be making even the small contribution originally contemplated towards the deficit revealed by the valuation and that the Exchequer is accepting responsibility for meeting, in one way or another, the whole of the deficit, it is the fact that the Scheme as it now stands is more generous than the local government and certain other superannuation schemes in its provision for the payment of interest on returned contributions. The modification made, for future entrants, in the new Regulation will serve slightly to reduce the charge falling in future upon the superannuation account.
Regulation 5 is concerned mainly with amending the Second Schedule to the 1955 Regulations and replacing the tables contained in it by revised tables.
This Schedule contains provision for the making of payments by persons

desiring to reckon periods of noncontributing service as contributing service. The Regulation provides for the rate of interest chargeable where such payments are made by instalments to be increased from 2½ per cent. to 3¼per cents. The need for this revision arises from the increase in the rate of interest to be credited to the Superannuation Account from 2½ per cent. to 3¼ per cent.
Regulation 5 also amends paragraph (4) of Regulation 36 of the 1955 Regulations by increasing from 2½ per cent. to 3¼ per cent. the rate of interest where interest is payable on repayment of sums paid in respect of accrued superannuation rights by persons seeking to reckon noncontributing service as contributing service. These Amendments are designed to apply to all officers who notify their intention to make additional contributory payments on or after the date on which the Amendment Regulations come into operation.
Regulation 6 is mainly concerned with amending the Fourth Schedule to the 1955 Regulations and replacing the tables there by revised tables. This Schedule provides for the calculation of transfer payments in respect of persons who leave the National Health Service and, on transfer to another superannuation scheme, apply to have a payment made in respect of their National Health Service to that scheme.
Regulation 6 also provides for the method of calculating service for the purpose of computing transfer values to be revised to bring it into line with that used in the Local Government Superannuation (Transfer Value) Regulations, 1954. The revised arrangements are designed to apply to all applications for transfer values received on or after the date on which the amendment Regulations come into operation.
This is a rather technical piece of business that I have to put before the House, but I think that hon. Members understand that we had this Report from the Actuary which showed this quite considerable deficit. The Government are prepared to accept responsibility for the deficit. I hope that the House will now be prepared to accept the Regulations.

10.19 p.m.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary


that quite a large part of these Regulations is technical, but there is one aspect of this matter which, I am sure, the House is anxious about. We should like to have an assurance from her about it.
When I looked at the Explanatory Note to the Regulations, I found that the most welcome part of it was in the penultimate paragraph which said:
Subject to certain limitations, officers who before the regulations would have received interest on their contributions will continue to enjoy that right.
I agree that these Regulations have certainly removed a strongly voiced grievance. The hon. Lady will have read the whole, or at least the salient parts, of the Memorandum of the Minister on this subject. Surely she will agree that the announcement on 9th November, 1959, shocked employees of the National Health Service. I have received many deputations in my Parliamentary life, but I received one of the most powerful from the National Health Service on these Regulations. It is clear to me that this proposal to make a saving of £0·9 million by ceasing to pay interest on returned contributions in the event of voluntary withdrawal from the Scheme could not possibly be accepted by the employees.
Those people who came to see me, and particularly one man who was concerned with the employment of staff, reminded me that when these young women—probably 70 per cent. of the staff of the National Health Service are women—were engaged, they were given a specific undertaking by the officers who engaged them before they took the employment that in the event of their leaving, not only would their contributions be returned, but that they would get accrued interest on them.
Many of these young women are in the marriageable ages. They are delightful, attractive young women and they have marriage in mind. The officer engaging them gave a specific undertaking that in the event of marriage, they would have this amount returned. Indeed, he said that it would be a nice little nest egg. That is done in the Ministry of Health to a large number of young women.
Then, to our astonishment, the Minister announced on 9th November that to meet the shortage in the fund, he proposed not to honour the agreement

Which he had with his employees. The hon. Lady has come here tonight and read through rapidly what she calls the technicalities. Surely, she should have come here and apologised to her employees through this House. She should have given an undertaking that in no circumstances would the Minister go back on his word in the Regulations.
When one has to administer a large Department, it is important to maintain harmony among the employees. When I think of the talk and the anxiety of all these young women on hearing that announcement, I find it extremely difficult to understand how the hon. Lady can come here tonight and not take this opportunity to reassure them. Had I been in her place at the Box, I would have apologised to them. An apology should be forthcoming.
Now, we have the Regulations. Nevertheless, my confidence in the Minister has been absolutely shaken. Regulations of this kind would have come to the Minister and to the Parliametary Secretary. They read them and then decided that this economy should be made at the expense of some of those with the lowest incomes in the National Health Service. It shakes one's confidence. I should like to hear from the hon. Lady how there was this gross oversight in the Ministry of what the repercussions would be.
In the future, we shall have to read Statutory Instruments of this kind very carefully and be more vigilant than we have been in the past. It is not we, perhaps, who have been unjustly treated —although I must confess that Statutory Instruments sometimes go through the House very easily—but this large number of chiefly young women in the National Health Service whom it was proposed to treat so unjustly. We should have an explanation of how it came about.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Houghton (Sowereby): I apologise for not hearing the first few minutes of the statement made by the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. It may be that she referred to what I now wish to say. If so, I apologise further for not having heard her. Naturally, the House is interested in the machinery of negotiation and consultation which has been set up in the National Health Service, as


in other branches of the public service, for the discussion of matters bearing on staff conditions.
I think that I am clear about discussions on pay, hours, leave and other day-to-day conditions of service. I am not so clear about matters concerning superannuation. I am very familiar, of course, with the Civil Service position, but the National Health Service to the civil servant is somewhat strange territory. They do things differently. For one thing, there is a contributory pension scheme over a wide area in the National Health Service whereas there is not in the Civil Service, and these questions of deficiency in the fund and variations in contribution do not arise in the Civil Service. They do in the Health Service.
I know also that questions of superannuation are excluded from the scope of negotiations on the Whitley Council in the Civil Service, because superannuation has to be the subject of legislation and Parliament properly will not delegate its powers and responsibilities to a negotiating body when it has to be responsible for legislation. Nevertheless, discussions take place between the official and staff sides on the Civil Service National Whitley Council on contemplated changes in superannuation law before the matter comes to the House. That again is very proper.
Representatives of the staff side are entitled to be consulted on contemplated changes in superannuation conditions, although within the framework of the Whitley Council it is not possible to reach formal agreement between staff and official sides on these matters because they are subject to legislation which must be passed by Parliament. Nevertheless, an understanding can be reached and each side can know where the other stands. Indeed, the official side can get the assent of the staff side to any course of action, which puts the official side and the Government in a strong position when they come to the House. They can say if asked, "We have consulted representatives of the staff and we are in a position to say that these proposals meet with their approval." That puts any Minister and the Government in a strong position and it conveys an assurance to the House that suitable forms of consultation have been observed.
What puzzles me about the matter before the House at the moment is to what extent it has been discussed and with whom. I have seen both sides of the story and I cannot easily bring the two together. There is presumably a body of trade unions, some perhaps covering workers outside the Health Service, some perhaps covering workers exclusively in the Health Service, but there must be a body of staff associations which are recognised as representative of the staff interested in the Health Service. They probably formed a joint committee or a staff side or some other form of collective representation which the Minister consults. What is that body? Has it been consulted and where does it stand in the matter now before the House? This is what I want to know.
I have received representations, as have many of my hon. and right hon. Friends, from individuals in our constituencies and from persons purporting to represent a substantial interest on the staff side who dissented from the Minister's first proposal. I really could not tell how representative this body and these people were. I think the House has to be on its guard against listening to dissident elements who have broken away, or have dissociated themselves from, or are not members of, the appropriate collective body of trade unions. Is there such a body? Is it that body that has been kicking up the fuss, or what? That is what I want to know. I think we are entitled to be fully informed.
I am not prepared to associate myself with the grumbles of representatives of a body who have no representative capacity or who, having representative capacity, have been overruled by a majority who believe that what they are doing is in the interests of all concerned. I want to know whether proper trade union forms have been gone through. We cannot be satisfied to pass these Regulations until we know. I have no hostility to anyone or to any body of persons. I am anxious to see justice done. But I am a keen trade unionist. I want to see the proper forms of trade union discussion and negotiation observed, and I want to see the majority decisions prevail.
This House should not interfere in matters which have been dealt with through proper machinery unless it is


satisfied in its own judgment that notwithstanding assent which may have been given, notwithstanding forms of consultation which may have been gone through, there is still an injustice being done. The House is entitled to a final verdict on questions of justice and equity in all matters in the public sector, notwithstanding the fact that they may have gone through the proper machinery of trade union negotiation.
The substantial issue here is whether the interest paid on voluntary withdrawal from the Scheme should be withdrawn or whether, as in the modified Regulations before us, the concession should be withdrawn in the case of future entrants and existing rights preserved. It is a fairly firm principle in these matters that existing rights should not be disturbed. In some negotiations with which I was personally concerned the question of contract or implied contract between the State and the employee was raised, even though representative staff associations were acting in the name of individual members.
For example, at the time of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service recommendation for variations in annual leave conditions of civil servants, and when representative staff bodies were willing to consider such variations as part of a package deal, individual civil servants raised this question: "Can anybody sign my rights away, however representative he may be? Has anybody the power to injure my personal conditions of service in the name of representative capacity? I have not conceded to anyone the right to vary my individual contract."
That raised an important question. In this case it did not prove a stumbling block in the end, because existing rights were preserved in the changes which were made under that agreement. I think the surprising part about the proposal made last year is that it did vary individual rights without the consent of the individuals concerned, even though someone may have purported to speak in their name, or alternatively other organisations having a different slant on this matter altogether were willing to sacrifice their own interests for what they believed to be the greater cause.
These complexities arise in trade union life, especially when trade union organisations have to band together to represent a variety of interests and where there

may be a conflict between particular sections of individuals.
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary, or whoever is to reply, please to tell the House quite frankly how this arose, what was done, whether representative opinion was sought, whether it was obtained, and how it came about that Members of the House of Commons were approached by means of one union, so far as I know almost to the exclusion of all the others concerned, and what was their position in this matter.
Until we are satisfied that everything is working properly and that this question was dealt with according to approved methods of consultation and negotiation we cannot feel happy about passing these Regulations.
Finally, what about the implied contract which my right hon. Friend stressed so strongly? Whether individuals were assured when they were recruited that such and such would be so, the fact was that it was written into their terms of service at the time of their entry. Under what conditions, therefore, was it thought that that right should be destroyed? In what circumstances was the acquiescence of the trade union concerned sought to destroy the individual right embodied in their contract of service when they entered the National Health Service?
I hope that this will bring out what has worried me greatly, because I have not got to the bottom of this, not being directly concerned in it. Otherwise I jolly well should have done. But, having such a close interest in allied matters, where things proceed in such an orderly fashion and with full approval and confidence on both sides, I am concerned and worried if things seem to be going awry in a sister service of equal importance where the responsibilities of both the trade union and the Government are also equally important. Therefore, I ask that we should be given answers to these questions.

10.37 p.m.

Miss Pitt: The right hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summer-skill) said that she thought I ought to apologise to the House because of the arrangements which were previously contemplated when staffs who voluntarily left the Service might forgo interest on their contributions and thus make


some very modest contribution in turn to this deficit; but I do not think an apology is called for. The Exchequer, the taxpayer of this country, is being asked to find an extra nearly £80 million to meet the deficit arising on superannuation in the National Health Service. About half of the deficit is due to the fact that wages have tended to increase in recent years, hence the deficit in superannuation, and it was felt last November to be not unreasonable to ask the staffs who left the Service, who had been enjoying those high wages, of course, to make a small contribution. It was small: less than £1 million. So I do not think an apology is called for.

Dr. Summerskill: But why should they?

Miss Pitt: Because the taxpayer is in turn accepting responsibility for £80 million.
The right hon. Lady, instead of accepting the fact that we have now agreed to meet the whole of the deficit from the Exchequer, was rather grudging about it. I should have thought that she would have gone on to say that she was glad we have now accepted this responsibility.

Mr. Harold Steward: Would it not be true to say that in any scheme of a contributory nature usually enjoyed by people in industry, as distinct from the Civil Service or the National Health Service, where a deficit is found, it has generally got to be met by contributions by participants in the scheme?

Miss Pitt: I think that that is so in schemes outside the Civil Service and the National Health Service about which we are now talking.
However, the right hon. Lady went on to ask me to give a complete reassurance to staffs. In fact I did so in my speech. Perhaps I had better repeat it. I said that on this occasion no part of the deficit would in fact be met by the staffs. That assurance I am glad to repeat to the right hon. Lady and to the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton). The hon. Gentleman asked me what consultation had taken place, and I am very glad to tell him that all interested staff bodies, 25 in all, are invariably consulted on any proposal to change superannuation provisions. Those 25 bodies include the Royal College of Nursing, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, the Royal College of Midwives, the British Medical Association, the British Dental Association, the Trades Union Congress, the Whitley Council staff side or functional council and the Prison Officers' Association.
There was the consultation and it was the fact of consultation in November with these bodies which brought forth the protests to which the right hon. Lady and the hon. Gentleman referred. Having considered the protests made to us as a result of consultation, the Government decided to preserve that thing to which the hon. Gentleman attaches so much importance—existing rights for existing officers.
I repeat that existing officers will enjoy the preservation of their rights and I hope that the House may now be able to accept the Regulations.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Amendment) Regulations, 1960, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE, SCOTLAND (SUPERANNUATION)

10.41 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): I beg to move,
That the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations, 1960, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.
The purpose of these Regulations is to apply to the National Health Service in Scotland the arrangements for superannuation which have just been approved by the House for England and Wales.
Primarily, they are necessary to help meet the deficit of almost £6 million in the working of the superannuation scheme in Scotland for the period 1948–55. While part of this deficit is being met by accounting adjustments, these amending Regulations increase the employer's contribution rate by 1½ per cent., which we estimate will liquidate just over £4 million of deficiency in about twenty years.
The Regulations also provide, in general, that interest will no longer be paid on the return of contributions, subject to the arrangements outlined by my hon. Friend to cover those who, before these amending Regulations come into operation, would have received interest on their contributions in the case of refund.
The Regulations also provide that where a person desires to have non-contributing service reckoned as contributing service the interest rate used in calculating the payments due will be increased from 2½ per cent. to 3¼ per cent., and revised actuarial tables based on these new rates are introduced.
I really do not think there is any more that I can say on this matter. Scotland and England go side by side in principle, and it is only just the few figures which are altered, in the case of Scotland being slightly smaller.

10.43 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: There is one point that I wish to raise. The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has shown that these Regulations are similar to the ones that have just been approved by the House for England and Wales. He was a bit more diplomatic, I think, than was the

Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. She said that because of representations it had been decided that those who were already in the service would still have interest paid on their superannuation contributions. The hon. Lady went on to say that these people must not take it for granted that if in the future there should have to be any further change their rights would be preserved. That was a very clear warning.
In the main, when these young women—who are the people who mostly leave the service—are accepted and join the superannuation scheme, they are accepted on certain conditions. They are accepted with the direct promise that they will have returned to them not only their contributions but the interest on those contributions. I did not like the threat contained in the speech of the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary, and I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman the Joint Under-Secretary of State agrees with her.
We are told that in England all that would have been achieved for the Exchequer in helping to wipe out the deficit was less than £1 million if the original intention had been carried out. The Parliamentary Secretary—I am sorry to have to refer again to her, but our own Joint Under-Secretary of State did not deal with this point—said that it was little to ask that this money ought to be paid by the giving up of the interest, and she explained that the general taxpayers were being asked to meet this deficit.
It would have been completely unjust to take one body of people—and a small body at that—and take a right away that had been granted them when they joined the superannuation fund. That would not have been British justice. Just as we were opposed to the statement of November, so would we be completely opposed to the philosophy that has been made on this point. I would like the Joint Under-Secretary of State to make it clear that he dissociates himself from this niggardly attitude presented by the Ministry of Health.

10.47 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: As there are also Regulations relating to Scotland, I have the opportunity of pursuing my point a little further, for it was not satisfactorily dealt with by the Parliamentary Secretary. I want to ask


whether the bodies consulted in relation to the Scottish superannuation scheme were the same bodies as were consulted in connection with the proposals affecting the English scheme.
If they were the same bodies, then how were they consulted? Was a letter written to them? Did they write letters back? Was there any place they all met, and where were they required to take a collective decision? Does this mean consultation with the B.M.A., the physiotherapists, the T.U.C. and Uncle Tom Cobley and all? Or is it merely an assurance that interested parties will be consulted without there being any place or time when a conclusive decision can be taken by them collectively? If that is so, the ultimate power obviously rests with the Minister. He is never going to get any settlement. He will always have assent from some, qualified approval from others, and dissent from others. The situation is worse than I thought. No wonder particular organisations have been expressing their dissent separately; apparently there is no place where they could express it in conclave with others.
In the Civil Service, we do not do things in this unsatisfactory fashion. On the staff side of the Civil Service National Whitley Council, we have representative bodies with the appropriate representation on the Council. These matters are submitted to them collectively, and on matters of policy a two-third majority, put there by our standing orders as a protection for minorities, is conclusive. That is not done in the National Health Service. There it is apparently sufficient to send a reply on a postcard. The B.M.A. may have one view and another organisation may have another, and I have heard another from the T.U.C. No wonder they cannot get to grips. There should be some national machinery whereby a collective opinion could be expressed and the Minister could act accordingly. He should not be confronted with one body saying "Aye" and another saying "No" and another small body running to its Members of Parliament and sending postcards and protests and the rest of it.
For all I know, there may be a conflict of views and points of interest between a very large number in this scheme

who do not want to pay an increased contribution if they can avoid it, and a lot of women who want to preserve the right to go out voluntarily and take their contributions and interest elsewhere. I do not know whether there is a marriage gratuity apart from the withdrawal of contributions plus interest from this scheme. We ought to know a great deal more about the differences in the National Health Service before we are asked to pass these complicated tables and formulae and superannuation conditions.
I am still not satisfied that this business is done in an orderly fashion, and if the Minister can give me further assurances I shall be glad. I hope I am rendering a service here and not merely being critical and obstructive. There are some aspects of the machinery which need examining. There are strange and heterogeneous bodies which are conflicting in outlook and not identifiable in interests as in the Civil Service. There is room for improvement, and I hope to see some.

Mr. Galbraith: It is kind of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) to offer his services. He said that the system wanted cleaning up, and he offered himself to my right hon. Friends as a kind of Parliamentary "Mrs. Mopp."

Mr. Houghton: I am quite prepared to take over the Minister's job, but on no other terms will I offer my services.

Mr. Galbraith: Regarding the detailed questions asked by the hon. Gentleman, the staff associations were consulted on a United Kingdom basis, apart from those which have Scottish Headquarters, such as the B.M.A., the Royal College of Nursing and organisations of that sort. The hon. Member was pretty well right when he referred to postcards. A copy of the draft regulations was sent and comments were asked for. It is interesting that none of the bodies which was asked requested a meeting, but that does not necessarily mean that the present system is ideal. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman may care to take advantage of the offer which I made to him.
The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) has placed me in an awkward position. She


said I was nice and gentle but she did not like my hon. Friend, and I feel that I am between two fires. I do not know what to say. At any rate, as a result of the discussions to which my hon. Friend referred, British justice, to which the hon. Lady referred, has prevailed. I do not think she should regard the remarks of my hon. Friend as a threat, but merely as a statement of what in fact is the constitutional position of the sovereignty of Parliament. There is certainly no intention of asking these people to pay money. As my hon. Friend said, those in the scheme at the moment will continue on the present basis. I hope the hon. Lady may be satisfied that we do not intend to make any changes, but that does not mean that my hon. Friend was not right to point out the constitutional position.

Miss Herbison: Surely every Minister who stands art the Dispatch Box does not feel it his or her duty to point out the constitutional position. There seemed to be no need at all for that, except the bad grace with which the Government had accepted the representations that were made. None at all.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations, 1960, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.

OVERSEAS STUDENTS (SCHOOLS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Brooman-White.]

10.57 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Mayhew: I wish to draw attention to the treatment of an increasing number of young foreigners attending private schools of English in this country.
These young people are not students in the strict sense of the word. If they were, they would come under the excellent welfare arrangements of the British Council. They come here mainly to learn the English language and, in some cases, to prepare themselves for entrance examinations for universities or to prepare themselves for a business career. I think it a compliment to the high reputation of British education that so many come here in increasing numbers. It is of great importance that they should come, but when they do they should get a good picture of Britain and be able to carry out their studies in a way satisfactory to themselves.
I shall not deal tonight with the facilities laid on for these people by local authorities and other non-profit-making bodies, but I wish to draw the attention of the Minister to the facilities given by the sixty or more private schools which cater for these young people. Some are residential schools, some are non-residential, but all are run on a commercial basis. Many of these schools are well run. There was a joint inspection scheme agreed between the Ministry of Education and the British Council in 1956. Under that scheme, twenty-eight of these sixty-odd schools have been visited. I understand twenty-four have been recognised and another five are pending.
These recognised schools are joined together in the Joint Association of Recognised English Schools. They form a body of recognised schools which are very anxious to maintain their standard. They would like to see the standard of some of these schools raised a great deal in the interest of them all. Tonight I am concerned with the thirty or more which are not recognised and have not applied for recognition by the Ministry. Some of them may be admirable, but I certainly


know of some against which complaints have been made. One is bound to ask, if their standards are all right, why do they not apply for recognition?
I want to draw attention to one school in particular against which I have had many complaints and which I have visited. I propose to give its name in the belief that that will be a salutary warning to some of the other schools and perhaps also to some young foreigners who are trying to choose a school to go to when they come to Britain. The one I am referring to is the London Academy in Cadogan Place.
I draw the House's attention first to the fees charged at this school. The basic fee is 160 guineas a term. To this must be added a £5 registration fee, £5 for books and stationery, £5 caution money, and in appropriate cases a £10 laboratory fee. A young foreigner who comes to the school at the beginning of next term in September must expect to pay at least £188 for the term. The term is not a twelve-week term. It is a term of 75 days. The average term at the school is 11 weeks and 1 day. For a summer course the school is now running the charge is 15 guineas a week.
Accommodation at the school is poor and overcrowded and contrasts in a most marked way with the prospectuses that the school puts out, which circulate through educational agencies in many countries. The prospectus in its claims would make a detergent advertiser blush. It contains five photographs of the school, only one of which is identifiable with the places which they purport to represent. The dining room is recognisable. The lounge illustrated bears no relation to the lounge I saw when I visited the school. The lecture room illustrated is now crowded with beds of more fee-paying students. The "typical student's study" illustrated is more spacious and better furnished than any of the many students' studies I saw. References are made to a television room and small library, which I was unable find, and to a club room with canteen facilities, which I found has not yet been built.
I have received a number of letters from students of the London Academy from all over the world. I will quote from a few of them. A young man has written to me from a university in

America. He describes what I think is quite a common experience among young foreigners. He says:
My parents and I went to the British Embassy in Manila to inquire about university entrance requirements in England. At this time I was already a sophomore student in one of the leading colleges in Manila. The British Embassy advised us that it was highly unlikely that I would be accepted, since it was requisite that I have a G.C.E. certificate. After thinking the matter over carefuly, we all decided that even if I lost two or three years of schooling the benefits that I would receive from a British education would far outweigh the disadvantages I had to go through.
Now I can well say that that decision was an error of judgment. Looking through the various prospectuses, the London Academy seemed to have exactly what I needed. Furthermore, we were assured that through my scholastic background I would not have any trouble in getting accepted into any one of your universities within a year's time. The London Academy's prospectus, through the misrepresentations of trick photography, seemed to be ideal. Its fees were higher, so I believed that this was indicative of the better scholastic service I would receive. The bait was well set, and I, like a dumb fish, snapped at it.
I can very well remember by very first impressions of the Academy. I immediately asked myself—were these the classrooms and laboratories the prospectus had presented, were these the charming bedrooms, and lounges that had been photographed, indeed was I in the right school at all?
Another student writes more pithily:
In my opinion, it is one of the most lucrative examples of crookery you could find in the teaching sphere…
Another young student, who went to two of these schools in England, says:
…I have experienced great disappointments in both cases…
He writes from the Canary Islands. He continues:
In the London Academy, prices being of the order of 194 sterling pounds per term of 12 weeks, the student had in exchange a mostly unqualified staff, who did not care about the students' progress, and inferior quality food, if not insufficient, and most of the rooms not fit for students to live in.
Later in his letter he says:
The object of this letter is not of vengeance, but only a duty I am fulfilling towards other fellow students who in the future will go to England, for them to find a better system and for them to be able to make their studies fairly and properly.
I shall not weary the House with further quotations from these students' letters, but I have one from an Icelandic student, who says:
I thought that it would be warmer to sleep in a tent somewhere in the middle of Greenland than to sleep in London Academy.


I could give other quotations of a similar kind. I have spoken to students and to an ex-teacher who, I am sure, are sincere and truthful, and they have widespread complaints on these lines.
I would not subscribe to a complaint against the teaching staff. In my opinion, they are properly qualified, but the prospectus, which I would call fraudulent, the accommodation, and the understandably bad spirit among quite a large number of students shows that there is a problem here, even if only at one school—but I am not at all convinced that this is an isolated instance.
A few days ago I telephoned half a dozen principals of schools who had not applied for recognition by the Ministry of Education, and I must say that the answers I got as to why they had not done so were not satisfactory. One said, "Recognition does not seem to apply to us." Another said, "We are afraid of losing our independence." A third said, "We are waiting for a science master to arrive, and then we may apply."
The one reply that I got that was entirely satisfactory, and to which I draw the Minister's attention, was that the man would like to apply but that as he had fewer than 20 students the Ministry would not recognise him, even if it were asked. I think that that point should be looked into. He writes:
Following your telephone call of this afternoon, would you please advise me if my establishment can be made eligible for inspection, even though my maximum numbers are seldom more than twelve, in two classes. I do feel that it is high time some of the less reputable establishments were made subject to inspection. I would like my own small 'school' to be registered officially, and others of a similar standard to receive a certificate from the Ministry of Education or the Home Office. I enclose a brochure which is true in every respect.
That may apply to a number or principals and explain a point of view that I hope the Minister will note.
What are we to do about this? I suggest that the Minister and the British Council should lay down high standards for the schools that will accept inspection. We cannot have anything but the highest standards for these young foreigners, and we should pay special attention to good amenities to enable them to get round and meet English people. That should be included in

inspection—and I am talking now of the schools that are prepared to accept inspection.
The Minister should also be prepared to inspect schools with fewer than twenty pupils. And he should look into the question of revisiting the schools. At the moment, inspection takes place once only, but that is not enough. There should be regular inspection of such schools as are prepared to be inspected, and if that means more manpower being provided by the British Council and by the Ministry inspectorate, the extra manpower must be found for this important work.
As for the schools that are not prepared to accept inspection, the Ministry should at least circularise them and ask them to give their reasons for not applying and, if he has not done it already, should let them know of the services available. More publicity is required both at home and abroad as to the importance of these young foreigners going to registered schools, and not to unregistered schools, or to schools that should register but do not.
It may well be that the Minister could draw the attention of his right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to the advisability of circularising embassies—especially, it seems, the embassy in Manila—asking them what they have been thinking of in recommending these young men to go to the London Academy. The Foreign Secretary could circularise all consulates and embassies, although I think that the British representatives understand this already.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, which teaches English by radio very successfully to a large audience, might well be invited to consider the possibility of announcing in the broadcasts that these schools that are recognised would be very good places for these young foreigners to go to—but not the unrecognised ones. In this way, we could make it increasingly difficult and unprofitable for substandard schools to continue.
If this does not work, then I think the Minister must consider taking more drastic steps and arming himself, if need be, with new powers. He should keep the thing under review and see how matters go in the months to come, after this effort has been made. We cannot


let the good reputation of British education abroad be undermined by international "Narkovers" and "Chiselburys."
I want the Minister to take the matter seriously. I want him to take a positive line to encourage the recognised schools and to give every possible encouragement to local authorities and other nonprofit-making bodies to expand their activities. It is this kind of personal contact which creates abroad the image of a country. If we welcome the trend and go along with it, we may do a great deal of good. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to give me a satisfactory reply, more satisfactory than the reply I received from his right hon. Friend the Minister of Education at Question Time not long ago. I hope he will deal with the points I have raised and put matters on a much better basis.

11.10 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Thompson): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) for giving the House an opportunity to consider, however briefly, this very important matter. I share entirely the views he expressed about the great importance we ought to attach to the treatment accorded to foreign visitors and to those who come from Colonial and Commonwealth Territories to learn English and take some share in the benefits of education in England. I do not know that there is a more important job that we can do than this if we do it properly and well.
I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman did not paint too grey a picture of the scene as it is today. Very many foreign students come to this country every year to take advantage of our system of education. The number is about 40,000 a year, coming to our universities, to our technical colleges, to the teacher training colleges and to further education institutes of all kinds, in addition to those who come for specialist courses of teaching either for a trade or profession, or, as in the particular cases that we are considering this evening, to learn the English language as a preparation for a career in their own countries, or for the purpose of further studies in this county.
The range is vast and complex, and I think that we can quite safely take to ourselves the assurance that the vast majority of students who come here are caught up in the better side, the more satisfactory part, of our educational system. In the universities and the other statutory teaching establishments of one kind and another, we need have no doubt that their training, their welfare, and the social side of their visits are very well cared for, and, I believe, fruitful both for them as individuals and for the bonds they hope to knit between us in this country and their fellows in their own territories.
I come now to consider the narrow group of people who come here, usually of their own volition, to an establishment of their own choosing, and for a purpose which is, very often, special to the individual himself. These are the people who may find themselves looking through lists of schools, examining truthful, faithful, or fanciful prospectuses prior to coming. Of these, I think that we can safely say, without exposing ourselves to any charge of complacency, certainly not to a charge of indifference, that the vast majority find themselves in the care of people with a genuine concern to do a job—whether for profit or not is, in most cases, irrelevant—to the best of their ability and within the limits of the resources at their hand. In most cases, they return to their own homes after having had great benefit from their stay here.

Mr. Mayhew: The hon. Gentleman referred to the vast majority of these schools, but, of course, out of 60 he has visited only 28. It is a little rash of him to refer to the vast majority.

Mr. Thompson: I must be quoted correctly. I said that the vast majority of the people who come here find themselves in establishment of a worthwhile and worthy kind. I shall follow that up by relating it to my later argument about the size of the school to the numbers of students involved. The great majority, so far as we know, are well treated.
In the Ministry, and, I think I can safely say from the information at my disposal, in the British Council, also, there is a significantly small flow of complaints from those who feel that they have a grievance to air. The hon. Member appears to have an adequate supply


of letters relating to a particular school and I do not question either their genuineness or the spontaneous idea that prompted the writers to send them to him, but it is true that within the Ministry we have only the most minute trickle of complaints and the same is true of British Council headquarters in this country. Therefore I think that in the absence of any flood of complaints, and leaving aside the limit within which the Ministry's inspectorate has been able to operate up to now, the system has worked well with the exception of the odd cases thrown up from time to time.
I want to follow up the hon. Member's suggestions on what action we should take to ensure that where there are offences a remedy is sought. I am sure that the remedy we seek will not be found in taking fresh legislative powers at this stage. First, the field is so diffuse. It does not appear to be possible to define the kind of school to which one should limit one's powers of compulsory inspection. Is the school which takes students from overseas for English to be the definition, if the sudents are over compulsory school age? If so, if it teaches English plus something else, like hairdressing, is it to be included in or excluded from the regulations?
Are we to cover the school which takes from overseas students of any one or more of these subjects and also students from this country? If so, the field over which the process of inspection would apply would range from tutorial classes on the engineering floor where a boy is pursuing his ordinary or higher National Certificate course partly at work and partly at technical college, right through to this narrow, specialist band. It seems to me that our efforts would fail from lack of definition and precision in drawing the line.
Nevertheless, there are some fruitful things that we might do. The hon. Member referred to the Association of Recognised English Language Schools. It was formed as a result of the putting foward of the idea that it would be a good thing if it were formed, with official encouragement, so that those who had been engaged in this work for some time and had gained experience and expertise and had had the benefit of recognition could band together and wear an accolade of recognition and membership

of the the Association with hope and pride and to make identification easier in overseas territories.
We could make it known abroad that membership of this Association is a good thing and, when found, can be recognised as a badge of merit. Then we want to get on with the process, already in operation and working with reasonable success as far as we can discover, of discussion, through the British Council overseas, the consulates and the embassies, with those who want to come here so that some inquiry is made at the point of departure before the boat is caught—or the boat is burned. The best advice that we can offer should be siphoned back from our knowledge in this country of the various establishments here through the consulates and the embassies so that it is available for the intending student.
By developing this process we are more likely to succeed in establishing a file of worthwhile, acceptable institutions to which visitors from overseas can come freely and confidently, assured that they can get here what they are seeking, namely, a facility and qualification in the English language and, what is more, can become familiarised with our way of life. It seems to me that if we can have time to pursue the matter on those lines—and it takes time—we shall serve the cause that we have in mind much better than if we try to proceed by definition and compulsory examination.
I was going to say a word on two other points which the hon. Gentleman raised, first, about the size of the schools, why some of these small schools do not apply for recognition and why they fear they may not gain recognition. It is a wide and fairly common educational experience that classes and educational establishments which are too small fail to establish, develop and put over successful courses of instruction, partly because it often happens that the ability range is too wide in the small establishment and the establishment is not viable enough to maintain three, four or five classes, partly because the age range may be too wide, particularly where we are dealing with students of mature age, and partly because the origins and backgrounds of people who form the classes vary so much.
While I do not say that a small school cannot be efficient—indeed, the reverse is often the case—it is likely that there will be more cases of failure to be efficient in the educational sense among the smaller schools than among the larger schools. Nevertheless, I hope that what will go out from this House tonight is that we will welcome applications from small schools, in connection with the joint inspection processes of the Ministry and the British Council, for visits to be made to these schools to see how far we can recommend them.
The hon. Gentleman asked why schools tended to be a little diffident about applying for recognition. I do not know. I imagine that reasons will vary from school to school. Some spring readily to mind. First, I would point out that the schools are doing very well as they are. There is a tremendous demand for this kind of education. There is nothing wrong in that. That is a proper process, and I hope that the House will do what it can to encourage it. We must not be depressed if these people want to come here. The schools do not feel that there is any gain for them in asking for recognition or even bothering to maintain any connection with the Ministry.
Secondly, it is by no means sure that recognition will follow upon inspection. Some schools may feel that even though their standards are high, they dare not take the risk of inviting inspectors to see them, and they may, without justification, feel that they ought to go slow and drag their feet, and see how the

process develops over the country as a whole.

Mrs. Eirene White: Will the Minister deal with the point about inspection more than once?

Mr. Thompson: Yes. I hope that the impression will not go out from the House that the inspection is a once-for-all and never again process. That is not so. There are physical difficulties in the Ministry finding inspectorial staff who can fit in their work with work under our maintained system. We cannot run the machinery beyond a certain point. It is not intended that once an inspection has been carried out there wild never again be another inspection.

Mr. Mayhew: It may not be intended, but no school has, in fact, been revisited.

Mr. Thompson: It is only five years since the process started. Even State schools do not have inspectors hanging around their doorsteps all the time. Once the system is established as a recognised pattern, we shall do what we can to see that the system is maintained in the highest possible state of efficiency.
I very much want the House to feel that the matter causes a great deal of careful thought in both the British Council and my Department, and we shall do all we can to see that the best possible results are achieved with the resources available.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock.